The debate was revived last weekend by the photo, published on Twitter, of a smiling boy who hands two coffees to a customer, at the drive-thru at Tim Hortons. I almost forgot: the boy is 12 years old. He is one of those pre-teens who are increasingly present on the job market due to the labor shortage.
Posted October 2
At what age is it reasonable to work during the school year? On the one hand, there are those who recall that they worked at a young age and that it instilled in them a desire for independence and autonomy. On the other hand, there are those who think that at 12, you should be able to settle for being a child and concentrate on your studies, without becoming a cog in the market economy.
We can weigh the arguments for and against the work of pre-adolescents, but one thing remains: Quebec seems to be a distinct society in this area. Quebec is the only Canadian province that does not have a minimum legal age for child labor. In no other province could a 12 year old serve coffee in a Tim Hortons.
In October 2021, British Columbia raised the legal working age from 12 — the lowest minimum age in the country — to 16.
Some “lighter” jobs can be done by 14 or 15 year olds (lifeguard, referee, instructor or, yes, waiter at a Tim Hortons), but not by pre-teens.
In the United States, a federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Actalso prohibits young people under the age of 14 from working, except for artistic work (being an actor in a TV series, for example), delivering the newspaper, babysitting, performing odd jobs around a private house, or even being employed by a family business or a farm.
In the European Community, as a general rule, you cannot employ a teenager under the age of 15, unless it is for light work (at 14 or 13 in certain exceptional cases).
Is the work of Quebec pre-adolescents an exception in the West? Many consider this to be an aberration and are campaigning for more rigorous supervision. Liberal MP Marwah Rizqy notably challenged the CAQ government on this subject in June.
There are of course beacons in Quebec. A child under 14 can only work if they have written permission from their parents. Up to the age of 16, a teenager cannot hold a job during school hours or engage in work “disproportionate to his abilities or likely to compromise his education or harm his health or physical or moral development”. . There is, let’s say, a lot of room for interpretation…
Experts generally agree that at less than 15 hours per week, a part-time job does not interfere with a teenager’s studies. It is even the opposite. At more than 20 hours per week, on the other hand, the effect is the opposite. We have not yet measured the full effect on school dropouts of young people working in times of labor shortages. And especially not that of children aged 11 and 12.
Why would we prevent a child from taking off his screens in order to make some pocket money? No one is forcing these children to work, some would say. In almost all cases, that is correct.
But how do you ensure that a 12-year-old boy who works at Tim Hortons doesn’t fall victim to the excesses of a disgruntled or intransigent customer?
We saw some, at the height of health measures, crying out for dictatorship because they were asked to wear a mask. And if it’s the boss who is too demanding, what reflex will an 11-year-old girl have to assert her rights?
Work is not without risks for health, physical and psychological. The number of injuries (e.g. burns) sustained by workers under the age of 16 rose from 85 to 203 between 2018 and 2021, according to the Standards, Fairness, Health and Safety Commission. work (CNESST). Among the injured employees in recent years, some were as young as 11 years old.
How can we protect ourselves against abuses of all kinds when we have such a lax legislative framework? That the work of young people in Quebec is among the least well regulated in industrialized countries seems incomprehensible to me in 2022. We are no longer in the era of the industrial revolution.
We’re not talking about tweens mowing the lawn or babysitting. We are talking about girls and boys who work in shops, after school, at minimum wage. We have just decided that they will not be able to vote at 16. But they can sell Timbits at 12. That says a lot about our priorities and our societal choices.