LePage is wrong on child labor–in two ways
Maine Gov. Paul LePage reiterates his support for rolling back child labor laws:
LePage doesn’t see the problem:
I went to work at 11 years old. I became governor. It’s not a big deal. Work doesn’t hurt anybody.
First of all, I’d question that he went to work in the way this law allows for—going from school to a job at McDonald’s or WalMart for several hours every single day—at age 11. And as to whether it hurts anybody, Amanda Terkel quotes the director of public policy for the Maine Women’s Lobby:
“Just look at the studies linking increases in substance abuse, delinquency, on the job injury and teen pregnancy with teens working long hours — I think it is a big deal, and yes it does hurt somebody.”
Second, I’d go back to what Doug said on this issue a few weeks back:
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.
And finally, Gov. LePage mischaracterizes the provisions of the law he’s advocating for. Whether that was done with intention to mislead his audience or because he simply doesn’t know what the bill says, Maine blogger Dirigo Blue notes that:
this is important, as many in the audience have never heard of LD1346, and will leave the auditorium believing what the Governor has told them.
Tags: child labor, Maine, unemployment
“I went to work at 11 years old,” he said at a town hall meeting on Friday in Topsham, Maine. “I became governor. It’s not a big deal. Work doesn’t hurt anybody.”
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Oh yes, and look how well you turned out – poorly informed, poorly educated and sitting in the governor’s chair because of a 3-way race and Tbagger rhetoric. There is not one scintilla of evidence that these changes will help the teenagers or the people of Maine. The only ones to benefit are the businesses looking for cheap labor –
So the end result of this brilliant scheme is to have families “send their 13 year-olds to work to learn some skills” to quote LePage. Flipping burgers is a skill preparing these kids for what kind of future work? Once they have worked for the 90 day training period at the lower wage, guess what happens? They will be let go and some other 13 year old will be hired for 90 days.
This is a disaster for the children of Maine and the push to have them take seriously the issue of studying hard to prepare for higher education and competing on the world stage in the future job market. LePage is an example of someone who did not receive a decent education.
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