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Since the Sanitation Services Inc employed by the slaughterhouses got fined for this, Arkansas under Huckabee signed a law removing requirements to verify ages of anyone working under 16. Aka no one is liable if children are working in slaughterhouses and getting chemical burns.
Here's a picture of one of the kids.
I'm not sure if I entirely follow. So they don't need to verify (effectively legalizing child labour), but why would that remove liability for injuries?
The wording could be better, it's meant that they're not liable for hiring kids since they can say that they didn't know, are not responsible for knowing.
Yeah, that's the child labour bit. But you don't suddenly turn immune to chemical burns once you're 16, so why would they not be liable for injuries? Even if they claim their workers to be 16, somebody still got hurt. I'm not familiar with the US legal system here, so forgive my ignorance.
Presumably these kids are very poor and/or immigrants. Someone needs to take a case for them to be held liable.
Liable for hiring children, I thought the OP meant.
But there is an issue with liability for injury. Securing a legal remedy requires knowing one's rights, knowing how to express those rights, and knowing how to start the litigation process. Children are unlikely to know any of these, considering most adults don't, either. And a state that allows child labour is unlikely to set up any mechanisms to provide that knowledge or make the litigation procedure easier to navigate. So even if the employer could technically be liable for workplace injuries, the chances of being sued successfully are slim.
They feign ignorance, and because the law bends to capital in the US, they get off with a tiny tiny fine.