Updating child labor regulations 21st century

There is also a proposal to simplify how unions can be formed or disbanded.

Labour Minister Christina Gray said the changes, hammered out with the help of the former head of the Alberta Labour Relations Board, would modernize laws and bring them in line with most other provinces.

READ MORE: Alberta holding meetings, seeking online input on changes to labour rules“Our government could not allow legislation that touches the lives of so many to be disregarded any longer,” Gray said.

People working for an employer for 90 days would be allowed to take unpaid leave if they were sick, injured, had a death in the family, a missing child or were the victims of domestic violence.

Roy Little, 12, left, said he had been in the mill for two years and had worked nights for nine months in Gastonia, North Carolina, 1908But at the turn of the century, some reformists started voicing their concerns over the children's welfare and the negative effects on their education.

There were fears the practice would stunt America in years to come because of a high number of overworked, under-educated youths.'Oppressive child labor' was defined as any form of employment for children under sixteen and any particularly hazardous occupation for children ages sixteen to eighteen, excluding agricultural labour.

For most of this time, child labor was an accepted fact - no one thought it was immoral or wrong, or that 'kids should be kids.' For thousands of years, children worked on family farms plowing fields, sewing seeds, tending animals, and helping with domestic chores.

They smash boulders into pebbles and pebbles into grit with primitive hammers and sticks.

They haul buckets of well water up the hillside and, pouring this water into shallow pans filled with rock and dirt, they swirl the muddy mix, looking in the silt for tiny flecks of gold.

It follows other changes including the repeal of contact statements and legislation to permit adoption by same-sex couples, both passed by the Victorian Parliament this year.

Victorians and organisations with an interest in adoption will be invited to make submissions to the Commission.