What seems to have been forgotten in the past thirty years is why unions came into existence in the first place and it began, believe it or not, with Child Labor. In civilized countries there was widespread agreement that some forms of labor were not appropriate for children. If you think that battle is over then you haven't been paying attention to the Kathy Lee Gifford headlines or the fight against the major shoe company's employment practices in the Third World. Because they can, that's why. Business employs children because children have no voice, no power, and they do not vote.
Children belong to their parents.
Kids work cheap and there seems to be an endless supply. The Entertainment Industry uses Child Labor. That's a fact. It was not an accident that kids in the entertainment business were exempted from Federal Child Labor Laws sixty-two years ago. It is not an accident that most States have no rules for kids in the Business, or that Canada has just not gotten around to setting up guidelines for working kids in nine of their ten provinces.