Main Street

After removing history, Maine politicians move to repeat it

A new bill in the Maine House of Representatives would allow employers to pay workers under 20 as little as $5.25 an hour, and would remove limits on how many hours a minor can work in a day.

The bill, LD 1346, also eliminates the maximum number of hours a minor 16 years of age or older can work on a school day and allows a minor under the age of 16 to work up to four hours on a school day during hours when school is not in session.

With Maine’s unemployment above 7 percent, state Rep. Paul Gilbert (D) wonders why Republicans are pushing to create a pool of cheap labor when so many people are begging for jobs.

“If we had a shortage of job applicants or potential workers, then you could look at other populations to ease that strain on the workforce,” Gilbert told The Huffington Post. “But we don’t have that right now. We have an excess of job applicants here in Maine, as well across the country.”

Not only does this have nothing to do with creating jobs or bringing unemployment down – it’s a dangerous repeat of history. See what co-sponsor Rep. Bruce Bickford (R) had to say about it:

The sponsor of LD 1346, Rep. David Burns (R), did not return a request for comment. But co-sponsor Rep. Bruce Bickford (R) said that the government should stop standing in the way on child labor issues.

“This is in no way an attempt to abuse child labor, which some may look at and say, ‘We’ve fought hard for kids and we’ve done this or that,’” he said. “Kids have parents. Let the parents be responsible for the kids. It’s not up to the government to regulate everybody’s life and lifestyle. Take the government away. Let the parents take care of their kids.”

Thing is, Bruce, these laws were put in place in 1847 – that’s 164 years ago – to keep young children from being exploited. And you know what? They’ve worked pretty well since then.

The bill isn’t being pushed by parents, it’s being pushed by industry groups like the Maine Restaurant Association – who have every incentive to be able to pay kids less for more work.

Maine has 7 percent unemployment and a 20 percent high school dropout rate. The last thing Maine needs to do is educate kids less on their way to receiving less wages for more work.

I’ll say again: Nothing about this will put a single person back to work, nor will it reduce the deficit by a penny. It’s about politicians doing the bidding of wealthy donors and hoping the Middle Class is too exhausted, undereducated, and overworked to notice us going back to the labor laws of the 19th century.

Tags: child labor, Jobs, Maine, unemployment