[mahoho]

I worked part time as a dishwasher for around 6 years in middle/high school, at a restaurant with no machine, just three sinks and a huge counter. It's definitely a good way to get into the restaurant industry, but also a great way to learn if you hate working at a restaurant.

[neilv]

Related to the importance and underappreciated status of dishwashers...

I only sometimes washed dishes at middle school. If you wanted the cafeteria "hot lunch", but your parents didn't pay for it, you could get it that day by volunteering to wash everyone's trays, in lieu of recess.

Personally, I think this wasn't a great lesson. In the current very inequitable US environment, I support simply giving nutritious food to all kids, and choosing some other occasions to teach whatever other values. Also, it's possible to too readily "know your station in life", and endure things you really shouldn't, so I don't think kids should be conditioned to do that automatically.)

And in restaurant kitchens, I've heard in many cases the rates paid for work are dragged down because undocumented workers don't have a lot of options, and so in some sense are exploited. Which seems especially class-oriented when they're working in a pricey restaurant, serving people who probably aren't working any harder than they are.

[jonhohle]

Your last point is rarely discussed and incredibly unfortunate. We’re creating a lower class of citizen who must exist in the shadows, constantly fear being relocated, and can easily be exploited for labor or worse. Then somehow this is packaged as being humane in some way.

[romwell]

...while being simultaneously vilified for "taking our jobs" and being "dangerous" (whereas they are being very deliberately used to generate profits).

You are making a solid case to issue permanent residence permits to all undocumented workers (since our economy would, at this point, collapse without them), and - most importantly - punish employers with prison time for hiring people unauthorized to work going forward.

That's it, illegal immigration problem solved.

Employers like that are having their cake and eating it, too. The undocumented workers are the ones who get punished for their employer's crimes. Sorry, I'm not going to cite sources, as I've yet to hear about anyone going behind bars for hiring illegal immigrants.

EDIT: never mind, here's a source[1]. It wasn't hard to find.

>For example, the latest available data show that during the last twelve months (April 2018 - March 2019) only 11 individuals (and no companies) were prosecuted in just 7 cases. There were no prosecutions during either of the last two months.

Corporate employers aren't even being prosecuted. This tells you everything about the hypocrisy of the entire system (and anti-immigration rhetoric in particular, whether legal or illegal).

EDIT 2: "sporadically" hiring illegal workers isn't even a crime punished by prison [2]. Yay.

[1] https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/559/

[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

[FireBeyond]

I always go back to the Tyson Chicken raids a few years ago to show just how broken this is.

ICE officials raided a few facilities a few years ago, and actually found about 900 undocumented workers.

Many of them gave evidence to officials, including written instructions from the company that advised them how to fill out employment, banking, taxation paperwork if they "didn't have documentation", i.e. Tyson didn't just know this was the case, they were actively enabling it.

And in press conferences, when journalists asked "Are there any plans to investigate the company or issue fines or charges?", the response? "We are not considering that at this time."

What it actually ended up looking like, with some other safety issues raised around that time is that Tyson perhaps decided their undocumented workers were getting a little too angry about poor safety standards, and making waves. It would be entirely unsurprising if Tyson made a sweetheart deal with ICE that said "Hey, if you come to these plants, you'll get to make this big stink about undocumented workers" (and remember, this was during the Trump administration), "but in return, can you leave us out of it?", shades of "Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"

[rootusrootus]

> simply giving nutritious food to all kids

That's becoming more common. My school district just announced they have funding to give all students free breakfast and lunch for the next three years. They got that funding through the government (and I think it may have come all the way from the feds). We're not a low income district, so I assume that funding is easily available.

Even before then, it was mostly a "pay if you can" policy. The kids have accounts and they punch in their ID number when they go through the lunch line, but it would never refuse even if the account balance was negative. They'd ask parents to bring the balance positive, but it was never revealed at the student level that someone did not have adequate funds.

Slowly but surely we're trying to make sure students can focus on school. Hard to make everyone's home life ideal, but we do what we can. Hopefully this translates to their increased success in life and each successive generation will improve.

[SoftTalker]

When I was in school, if you didn't have funds to pay for lunch (and you weren't formally on the free lunch program) you got a white bread peanut butter sandwich instead of the hot lunch.

They don't do that anymore, but stuff like that was commonplace in the past.

[bobthepanda]

I think this is terrible mostly because it is inequitable.

In Japan, it is customary for elementary school children, all of them, to be doing the food distribution and cleaning. (who is doing what rotates.)

https://youtu.be/fze5s1SlqB8?si=lr9eskf1ty9vqE7k&t=123

[neilv]

I think I like this idea in general, especially if children rotate through all the chores.

And in moderation, so children have lots of unstructured time to play and learn and socialize on their own.

[bobthepanda]

It’s just for lunch.

Part of why this works is because Japanese school is structured differently from American school. In the US the class of students moves between teachers’ rooms; in Japan the teachers move between classrooms. So things like lunchroom coats that fit the particular students are always in the same place, and the lunch is served in the classroom so you’re only serving a few dozen people.