media@nclnet.org<\/a><\/p>\nWashington, DC–The National Consumers League (NCL) expressed dismay with comments made last week by presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who attacked the nation\u2019s child labor laws as \u201ctruly stupid\u201d and suggested that impoverished school children should be used to replace adult janitors in struggling schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a nation, we\u2019ve spent 100 years trying to protect children by passing child labor laws. For a presidential candidate to make such a reckless comment is unfortunate,\u201d said NCL\u2019s executive director Sally Greenberg, who noted that \u201cbefore the passage of child labor laws, children often worked 14-16 hour days in factories and mines and often suffered debilitating injuries in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at a Q & A session at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Nov. 18, Gingrich responded to a student’s question about income inequality in the U.S. by arguing that the inequality is the result of “truly stupid” rules that he said has added to U.S. poverty rate and prevents children from developing a strong work ethic. \u201cIt is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid,\u201d said Gingrich.<\/p>\n
“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model,” he said. “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 would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.” In his remarks, Gingrich praised the examples of those who began work between the ages of nine and 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith nearly 14 million unemployed adults in the nation, Mr. Gingrich\u2019s solution is to fire adults and hire children to do work that no child should be asked to do,\u201d said Reid Maki, NCL\u2019s Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards and the coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, a 28-member organization which NCL co-chairs with the American Federation of Teachers. \u201cThe fact that Mr. Gingrich went out of his way to suggest that children from poor neighborhoods should be compelled to do janitorial work is really troublesome. If schools are failing and the students are poor\u2014as in the case put forward by Mr. Gingrich–it is all the more essential that these children focus on academics.\u201d<\/p>\n
NCL believes in the value of work for teenagers with proper limits and safeguards, but is keenly aware of research that shows teen work beyond 15-20 hours a week has diminishing returns for young workers, causing them to drop out at greater rates and increasing the likelihood that they will not attend college. NCL catalogues the hidden dangers of teen work in its annual report, \u201cThe Five Most Dangerous Jobs for Teen Workers\u201d released each spring.<\/p>\n
Several members of the Child Labor Coalition, including the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, Human Rights Watch, First Focus Campaign for Children, the American Federation of Teachers, and NCL have been working to remove exemptions to U.S. child labor law that allow children in agriculture to work 10- to 12-hour days in 100-degree heat, harvesting crops. \u201cThese children perform back-breaking labor in pesticide-treated fields and use dangerous equipment,\u201d said Reid Maki. \u201cThey suffer a drop-out rate that condemns many migrant youth to a vicious cycle of generational poverty. Mr. Gingrich needs to help toughen our child labor laws, not gut them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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About the National Consumers League<\/strong><\/p>\nThe National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
November 22, 2011 Contact: NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323,\u00a0media@nclnet.org Washington, DC–The National Consumers League (NCL) expressed dismay with comments made last week by presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who attacked the nation\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10901,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions\/10901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}