My point is that the French are effectively pulling up the ladder and younger people there are going to be stuck with a bill and none of the benefits.
It's all well and good to credit the end of child labor in the US to unions, even though it was the progressive movement generally that ended child labor and not unions, but whatever. That said, the American union movement was a powerful force FOR segregation and actually caused a real drop in wages for black workers in northern cities in the 1910s and 1920s, so I think it's important to be honest about the whole history.
It's all well and good to credit the end of child labor in the US to unions, even though it was the progressive movement generally that ended child labor and not unions, but whatever. That said, the American union movement was a powerful force FOR segregation and actually caused a real drop in wages for black workers in northern cities in the 1910s and 1920s, so I think it's important to be honest about the whole history.