During a speech on Friday at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called child labor laws “truly stupid,” and proposed ending them. Gingrich’s plan includes firing unionized school janitors and replacing them with poor children who coincidentally are mostly African American and hispanic. Gingrich then said that these children would work under a “master janitor.”
“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in child laws which are truly stupid,” Gingrich said. “Saying to people you shouldn’t go to work before you’re 14, 16. You’re totally poor, you’re in a school that’s failing with a teacher that’s failing. I tried for years to have a very simple model. These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work; they’d have cash; they’d have pride in the schools. They’d begin the process of rising. Go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job at 9 to 14 years of age. They are selling newspapers, going door to door, washing cars. They were all making money at a very young age. What do we say to poor kids in poor neighborhoods? Don’t do it. Remember all the stuff about not getting a hamburger-flipping job? Worst possible advice to give the poor children.”
Basically, Newt is saying we should replace unionized labor with slave labor. You know, because kids are so easy to manipulate that you can pay them in dimes and they won’t know any better. Plus, children won’t demand health insurance, weekends off, vacations, overtime, etc… Newt Gingrich is proposing we take childhood away from our kids and take jobs away from adults as a way to undermine those pesky minimum wage laws and other benefits mentioned above that many conservatives would rather not give their workers. Child labor laws are there for a reason, to protect adult workers and to protect children. Gingrich’s plan basically puts children into slavery and adults into the unemployment line. All in the name of profit.
Play that race card !!! How dare he attack unionized school janitors ……I bet the kids would like to have a little money to help their families…..oh thats right having poor kids selling crack is much better
As I thought when reading this, some are going to totally miss the point and make the kind of remarks that have been made. Speaker Gingrich is trying to build a work ethic for kids who, in poverty may not have a roll model. Trying to introduce that working for what you get, plus builds so many more character points than laying around with your had out waiting for a welfare check or what ever else the government can had out. It’s been statistically recorded that kids who are raised on farms are better equipped to handle LIFE and learn better in school because they are DOING things, learning and contributing to the family, not just sitting around playing games all day. Janitors (especially good ones) are hard to find in places where unions don’t rule,(and in rural America that is more the case) because no one wants this menial kind of work (unless they are going to make a ridiculously high wage with union bucks) so I question how many adult jobs will really be lost. As to the comment about health insurance, what kid has to provide for their own health care. They are either covered under their parents or Medicaid already. There is nothing like the pride of working, taking pride in their work, and learning how to be an upstanding self disciplined citizen. Contributing not taking. One side benefit is, these kids would help govern the other students to have more respect for property. it’s not about slave labor it’s about holding ones head high, contributing to society and stop being a gimme generation.
The reason we have to child labor laws is to prevent children from being abused by unscrupulous employers. Prior to these laws is being passed there were 8 year olds working in coal mines, 5 year olds working in unsafe conditions in factories with no exposure to natural light. The work day for these children was generally 12 to 16 hours, six to seven days a week. Children were cheaper than adults and when they couldn’t work anymore you could always get more. When they died on the job chuck them out and get a new one. Check your history before advocating child slave labor. If we try hard we can have labor laws like china, or Vietnam.
Most Republicans would love to turn the clock back 100+ years on workers’ rights.
If corporate CEOs and their paid lackeys in Congress had their way, all labor unions would be banned and all federal and state labor laws regulating workplace conditions — including employee safety and child labor laws — would be repealed. Workers’ comp, overtime, paid vacation, health benefits, sick days, pension funds, minimum wage, etc. … all would be distant memories.
Spoken like a man who doesn’t own his own business and a unionized trouble maker!
..Spoken like a man who would rub his hands with glee if workers had no rights at all.
What part of wanting people to get fair recompense for a fair day’s work makes someone a “troublemaker”, Mr Burns..?
For some reason, that sane people can not understand, opening the doors to child labor in a depressed economy, makes sense to Newt.
An economy that is reducing our teachers salaries, removing teachers from the schools, makes putting children to work makes perfect sense.
First janitors loose their jobs to 12 year olds (in some cases younger), excess teachers are no longer needed, the children are working so smaller classes equals fewer teachers. Then all the teachers can go, because it works so well putting the kids to work as janitors, they might as well teach too…
Opening that door once again, leads to places where we DO NOT want to go.
Why is it when the make these totally dumb statements they immediately begin to justify it, then deny it?
Newt also said that the ‘master janitor’ would be Jerry Sandusky, because he knows how to treat kids right.
Newt is another out of touch, clueless Repuke who has never worked an honest day in his pathetic life
Yeah, janitorial work sure puts a kid on the fast track to upward mobility.
Mobility…TOTALLY!!! Have you ever sat in one of those huge wheeled buckets you mop floors with and had a friend push you down a hallway?
It’s almost like having a car!
Newt no doubt regards encouraging poor inner city kids to clean school toilets to be a form of career vocational training.