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Gingrich: Child Labor Laws 'Truly Stupid'

Bardeaux

Bardeaux

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Promising “extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America,” Newt Gingrich said Monday that he would fire school janitors and pay students to clean schools instead.

Speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the Republican presidential candidate and former speaker of the House challenged laws that prevent children from working certain jobs before their mid-teens.

Gingrich blames “the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization" for “crippling” children.

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.

”I tried for years to have a very simple model,” he continued. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Gingrich, who over the weekend said Occupy Wall Street protesters should "get a job" and "take a bath," suggested Monday that poor children need to build a work ethic.
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Union busting, child labor, what's next for the Republican party? 8(
 
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to easing child labor laws to allow for some additional employment opportunities for kids. Child labor laws were drafted to prevent kids from taking on dangerous jobs that deprived them of education. But if a 12 year old kid wants to earn a little pocket cash by working after school for two hours mopping up the hallways I wouldn't get angry.
 
Jesus Christ. I mean honestly people, this is supposed to be instinctively a bad idea. Business openly fucks its employees, in broad daylight, so logically lets extend their efforts to reach children. Yeah, great fucking logic. Lets see we've had stagnating wages since the 70's, while production went up by 62.5% so the deficit there was solved by debt while they were shipping jobs to China later in the 90's. We all know what businesses get away with in China, the most stupid fucking thing anyone can do is let them have children. Even more serious than that the logic behind his statement is:

"We're trying to fix poverty here, why aren't we hiring kids".
To find out how this statement should make you sick you just need to answer these questions with his premise, "Why is there American poverty" It will NEVER be solved under capitalism, it requires it. "Why are we in a current crisis where we need kids to have jobs" because of (arguably) irresponsible big business practices who continue to pass the punishments onto their consumers, bailouts, austerity, kids? Most employers can't even provide good health care and we expect children to fall under this system or worse we expect them to help their parents? What happens when "working out of poverty" keeps the whole family working a minimum wage, skipping basic education, they're still "stuck" in poverty. Over the years big businesses have been disemboweling basic human rights and it's always put forth in a rational way (on the surface) and then later everyone finds out "hey we got fucked, I'm not going to make that mistake again" -- "Oh you mean Reagan ruined this Country?" -- "Oh you mean Bill Clinton procured and accelerated the '08 crash?"
Already there are 16 year olds who pay taxes, yet, can't even vote.

I'm disgusted by anyone who agrees with this shit. I expect it from a piece of shit like Gingrich I mean this guy is human fucking garbage. While his dying wife lay in the hospital he forces her to sign divorce papers claiming "she is not pretty enough to be a President's wife". Imagine what he really thinks about "poor people". America has cancer in the body as the nous mercilessly beats the image of the soul. 'The poor are lazy inefficient peoples lets start employing their kids'
 
At a time where unemployment is terrible, where is this mandate coming from to cut jobs? Just looking for more people to join the Occupy protests? You're looking to replace janitor jobs with the work of students. In principle I don't disagree that the most efficient route should be taken. But looking at the Republican constituency, I can't imagine that this is the wisest move politically.

P.S. Gingrich is a fat fucking bobblehead.
 
I think current laws already permit someone 12 or older to work under so many hours per day in some positions, and those over 16 have no restrictions on hours. A change in the law would have to be a change in the definition of "hazardous occupation" or a change in how many hours children under 12 can work.
 
Let the state health agencies handle the safety laws. We had t do 50 hours of community service in middle school in our own time. I picked up trash for an hour every day with a stick and a bag at an impoverished school down the street. There would have been ten kids out there if compensation was involved. There are plenty of things you could let kids do to teach them the value of contributing to society while earning some ice cream money on the side. Doesn't have to be anarcho-capitalism.
 
I would agree with free labour if the school itself is also not-for-profit
 
Most kids don't even get a decent education (ESPECIALLY in America) and here we want them to contribute to the society without even fully understanding what the nature of it is or the rigors of its operation? Without fundamental knowledge they can't contribute to society other than being free (or in balls case, paid/underpaid) labor which hardly merits the word "contribution" even less so to it's derivative "society"
 
lulz. coming from the same people who would criticise other countries for having lax labour laws.
 
Hopefully he wins the republican nomination, I'd love to see him get properly stomped.
 
i hope he gets prezdent. anyone that retarded in this day and age will surely bring on the inevitable communist revolution.


he's got to.


marx promised.
 
Nobody ever worked their way out of poverty in a minimum wage job - it just doesn't happen. Minimum wage jobs let people in poverty subsist, barely, or they are a stopgap measure to keep someone fed and housed while they work on something ELSE that will get them out of poverty (like education, a trade school of some sort, preparing to start some kind of business, etc). But at $7.25 an hour, you are NEVER going to bootstrap yourself out of poverty, that's just ridiculous.

Protecting children from unsafe working conditions was only one part of the equation of the goal of the child labor laws. The other part was to help ensure that all children, rich or poor, had equal access to at least SOME degree of early education. Now, of course, with the vast differences in quality of schools, we already don't have this, but adjusting the system such that poor kids, already at a disadvantage due to their background, take on the additional disadvantage of working sooner, for longer hours, does nothing but GUARANTEE that they will be working at that type of job for the rest of their lives, because they will have basically no chance at a competitive education at that point.

Sounds like the plan will work exactly how Newt and his types want it to.

Like Shrooms said before, capitalism requires that some people be trapped in this sort of cycle. No one works a miserable, minimum-wage job by choice. If they weren't trapped in a position where they had no other choice, businesses might have to actually pay them competitively. As long as there is a large pool of people trapped in this cycle, the supply (of minimum-wage workers) will always be much greater than the demand, so their wages can stay rock-bottom, and big business benefits.
 
Yes... let's please usher our children into a caste system without having to deal with worrying about their future. Something is terribly wrong with society if a child is to be expected to help financially support their family in an era of welfare and "entitlement" reform.
 
captainballs said:
Let the state health agencies handle the safety laws. We had t do 50 hours of community service in middle school in our own time. I picked up trash for an hour every day with a stick and a bag at an impoverished school down the street. There would have been ten kids out there if compensation was involved. There are plenty of things you could let kids do to teach them the value of contributing to society while earning some ice cream money on the side. Doesn't have to be anarcho-capitalism.
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I had to do 150 hours of community work to get my IB diploma in high school. Even if I scored a 100% on all my exams, I would still not be able to get my diploma without those 150 hours. That didn't stop some of my classmates from cheating and getting fake statement from various "organizations" stating that they did community work for 150 hours. How does this whole discussion relate to child labour laws?

P.S. In principle, I actually support relaxing child labour laws. However, I am almost certain that in practice this initiative will be corrupted into some sort of monstrosity aimed at achieving other unrelated political aims.
 
you know if you kick children in the teeth, not only will they work more enthusiastically, but if you knock any out, they just grow back =D
 
^L2R, you're nutz man! LOL!
I like the previous statement you made. Let's go ahead and get these "greater evil doers" in place so we can get the George Bush/GOP backlash into full swing this time. We will want to fuck people bad if we have to live under the torment of Gingrich.

But, I've always been against compulsory schooling. If a kid wants to work instead, he should have full human rights and safety and be allowed to learn a trade while he is young and not yet spiritually destroyed by his imprisonment in the school system. In poor single parent families, this could alleviate some of the financial burden. The worst thing is when wealthy parents force their kids to work part-time to "learn responsibility." These little good looking rich bitches are getting the good part time jobs while the rest of us are desperate for decent work.

I agree that students should be responsible for school maintenance... but we shouldn't be paying them to do it
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Uh...If someone told me that shit when I was in school...man, there is no way I was gonna scrape bubble gum off the undersides of desks and clean bathrooms and fix shit for free. I'd fuckin' sledgehammer the school to smitherines! What that poster is suggesting is akin to what the Nazis made the Jews and Gypsies do in their concentration camps. Public school is just a youth concentration camp anyway so Parents can go to work for the system.
 
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