[stonez138]

Wow, you cite The Charles Koch foundation, er, I mean the Cato Institute and Wikipedia. Talk about an epic fail. I can't imagine that the billionaire Koch brothers could possibly have an agenda to justify child labor...

But you discussing businesses screwing over customers, not employees.

Sorry, you don't get to define the topic I'm discussing. How is a woman getting paid less by an employer a discussion about workers screwing over there customers? That's the main discussion here, although we have gone on a few tangents.

The simpleton view that employers exploit laborers to make a profit was debunked a century ago.

Ok now I know you're just trolling. Either that or you have your head WAY FAR up your ass. Who debunked this? Let me guess, The Cato Institute? I guess someone forgot to let Cesar Chavez know this. Let's just take the example of phospherous matches, which were being made in this country into the 20th century. I guess it wasn't abuse or exploitation when these workers fingernails fell off or worse. Or I can speak from my personal experience. I worked briefly at a chicken farm. This farm advertised room and board with employment. This "room and board" was actually a bunch of broke down school busses parked behind the farm. Or how about something more recent like this story about a PREGNANT WOMAN that died after being denied water and shade.
the ultimate irony is that the link is from, you're going to love this, FOX NEWS!!!! http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C293...3458%2C00.html No exploitation going on there huh?

With that said, I don't see any particular problem with company stores. If someone doesn't like being paid in store credit, they don't have to work for that particular employer.

Do you disagree that we had a vast amount of child labor ever since we were living in small tribes of hunters/gatherers up until the 19th century? Do you think everyone from the beginning of time until the 19th century were just terrible parents who hated their kids?

Theres a HUGE difference between a child working on their family farm or working with your father and learning a trade, as was done for centuries and a child being an industrial worker in a factory which, according to the 1900 census, would have included 1 in 6 American children.

And if child labor in factories and such was exploitation by capitalists, why did the parents of these children allow it to continue?

Because they had no choice you moron. They weren't being paid a living wage. They were also being exploited and untill the formation of unions there was absolutly nothing they could do about it, other then starve.

And are you seriously stupid enough to believe that when the government comes knocking saying they received a complaint, a businessman will just spend 2 minutes faxing over some numbers and will be done with it?

It wouldn't take Johnnie Cochran to win the case. Compare the womans education and work history to her male counterparts and see if they're being paid the same.