Mike Kussow is such a kind-hearted and productive human
being. He is a lobbyist for the
Wisconsin Grocery Association and it is retailers, the service industry and the
grocery chains that are behind the efforts, some successful, to weaken child
Labor laws. In Wisconsin, the bribery strategy worked as an amendment
was inserted in to the state budget bill days before Walker signed it that
would relax protections for young ‘uns.
Before the amendment, 16 and 17 year olds couldn’t work more
than 26 hours during a school week and more than 50 hours a week during
vacations---not exactly strict child Labor laws. The passing of the amendment has eliminated
those restrictions. Kussow makes it
clear that the members of the Grocery Association have no intention of overworking
the kids or creating a “sweatshop”, they
“Just want to give kids that great first
opportunity you get in a grocery store.”
Bless their grocery store owner little hearts. I’m sure they were influenced by Newt
Gingrich’s statement at a meeting at Harvard last year that he would do away
with “truly stupid” child Labor laws
that prevent kids in poor neighborhoods from being put to work. * Business Week points out that old Newt one upped himself in
December during a GOP debate saying that “Poor
kids could learn the value of a hard days work by taking the jobs of Union
janitors at New York public schools.” You have to hand it to these folks, people who
do no productive Labor, he earned lots of money as a consultant to Freddie Mac,
$1.6 million to be exact and another $800,000 as a consultant to the US chamber
of Commerce for “thinking” about the economy. These people know nothing about
hard work, workers and poor workers especially know about hard work when they
can find it.
It’s not just Wisconsin either where child Labor laws are
under attack. In Maine a bill was
introduced last year to increase the number of hours 16 and 17 year olds can
work in a week from 20 to 32 and to allow the bosses’ to pay them $5.25 an
hour, $2.25 less than the state’s minimum wage. The president of the Maine
restaurant Association believes its wrong to prevent a young teenager who
“wants” to or who “needs” to work
from doing so. Freedom, that’s what it’s
all about. A compromise was reached at 24 hours and they have to punch out by
10.15 pm says BW.
The legislation that is supposed to protect children is the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Under the FLSA, children must be at least 14
to get a job and when school is in session, 14 and 15 year olds are barred from
working before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m. according to BW.
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| It's easier to get at them in the global south |
The bosses have always used children, prisoners, and
immigrants as a means of undercutting higher paid and organized workers; the
more vulnerable, the better---that’s why prisoners and soldiers should have
Unions---that’s why we should join forces with all immigrant worker,
undocumented as well. It is in our class
interests to do so. It is no accident
that the FLSA was passed in 1938 when only a couple of years before half a
million or so US workers occupied the factories and workplaces of this country
in the great upsurge that led to the formation of the CIO. Much of the legislation favorable to workers
was passed in this period, it was simply the politicians of the bosses
codifying in legislation what had already been won in the streets and
workplaces of America.
I was with some grocery workers tonight who are facing
attacks by the same grocery bosses on their pensions and rights. These same
grocery bosses who are driving the efforts to weaken child Labor laws are attacking
Unionized workers at the other end of the age scale. It is a disgrace and a reflection of the
crisis in the leadership of organized Labor that a grocery worker with 41 years
on the job is earning $21 an hour. $21 is close to poverty wages in the state
of California. We pointed out in an earlier blog how the heads of the UFCW here
in California chose as their person of the year in 2009, the CEO of one of the major
grocery chains; the guy who is waging war on their members and our children and
who belongs to two or three country clubs with fees over $100,000 a year.
It was the rise of industrial unionism, the workplace
occupations, the strikes, the mass picketing and defiance of the law that
forced FDR and the Democratic Party to pass legislation favorable to workers and
our families in the 1930’s. The Occupy
Wall Street Movement is resurrecting these great traditions of the US working
class and it is to these traditions that the working class of today, the 99% must
return.
* It’s not just Newt who wants kids to work. Business Week1-09-12
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