Gingrich Attempts to Help Kids Get Jobs by Changing Child Labor Laws, Faces Criticism

Due to minimum wage laws, child labor regulations, more restrictions on driving, and additional costs imposed on employers due to laws passed in recent years, many of my students have been unable to find employment. These government-created barriers to their desire to work has prevented them from making money and paying for college expenses, but even worse, these government-erected barriers have prevented these young students from gaining needed work experience and job skills that will help them in the future.

At a recent speech in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich took aim at some of these child labor laws, saying that kid janitors “would be dramatically less expensive than unionized janitors.... I’m not suggesting that they drop out of school and become janitors, I’m talking about working 20 hours a week and being empowered to succeed.”

He went on to call child labor laws “truly stupid” at an appearance at Harvard University, saying that he would propose extraordinarily radical changes to these laws that would fundamentally transform the culture of poverty. He further said that children in the poorest neighborhoods are “trapped in child laws” that prevent them from earning money.

The reaction to his comments has been swift and largely negative. Many have accused him of attacking union jobs, suggesting that only unionized employees have the skill set to accomplish all aspects of being a janitor, but these sorts of accusations are not grounded in reality. Of course it would be essential to have a unionized master janitor to supervise and direct the young kids, but many other tasks (such as sweeping, cleaning boards, picking up trash, etc) could be performed by young students without any sort of prior skills. These students could gain job skills, make a little bit of money, and build pride in their school.

Others have accused Gingrich of being insensitive the to the needs and pressures of young children and have tried to paint him as some sort of evil industrialist suggesting that little kids go to work in the mines. This criticism also is misguided- in their desire to protect children from being taken advantage of in the workplace, these kids are being deprived of a chance to make money and earn skills that they want- prevented from doing so by rules and regulations pushed by well-meaning adults that backfire and instead hold kids back and increase their poverty.

My own theory is that many reacted so negatively to Newt's comments because they are trying to protect the monopoly on education and learning currently enjoyed by schools in America. Teachers, administrators, liberals, and Democrats have for years attempted to limit student's abilities to learn outside the classroom, burdening them with massive amounts of homework, making it difficult for these students to miss class to spend time at internships or job-shadows, and putting in place laws and regulations which prevent them from getting jobs. They do this because they want to control what sorts of education and learning these students receive, and recognize that if students were go get out in the real world and begin paying taxes and earning their way in life, they would no longer be as dependent on their teachers and the educational establishment and would be less controllable by administrators.

Much like the communists in Russia and China recognized the threat that religion represented to their absolute control, the educational establishment reacted negatively to Gingrich's suggestions of reforming child labor laws because it is jealously guarding its territory, trying to block students from learning about the outside world so that they will be forced to learn all their information from unionized teachers in the public school system.

UPDATE 11/29: In response to those who are asking me who I endorse... I already wrote about Ron Paul, I don't think Bachman or Huntsman or Santorum have high enough polling numbers to consider further, and Hermain Cain should drop out of the race now before anything else comes out about him. That leaves Gingrich, Romney, and Perry, and Perry demonstrated an inability to communicate his message combined with horrible stumbles in debates, so it's either Gingrich or Romney.

UPDATE 12/2: So, apparently Newt is continuing to work on this theme- memeorandum has linked to several stories now that go along with Newt's getting kids back to work theme- check out Jonathan Capehart's article in the Washington Post called Newt Gingrich's disgusting remarks about ‘really poor children’ or Nick Kalman of Fox News' article Newt: Poor Children Have “No Habits of Working”.