Maine GOP Legislators Looking To Loosen Child Labor Laws

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/30/maine-gop-legislators-loo_n_842563.html

The republicans are nothing but satan's hunchmen looking to destroy this country.

This is the same guy that took down the labor mural from the Department of Labor. He said that it didn't show cooperation between business and employees.

Does he want them chained to a loom as well?

I just heard about this. This is completely insane. They want to be able to pay people under the age of 20 $5.25/hr and other crazy things.


Maine Republicans seek to loosen child labor laws
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/31/maine-republicans-seek-to-loosen-child-labor-laws/

Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill through the Maine Legislature
that would rollback child labor laws enacted by the state in 1991.
The bill, LD 1346, establishes a "training wage" for employees under
20 years of age at $5.25 per hour for their first 180 days of employment
and increases the amount of hours minors can legally work. The proposed
"training wage" is over two dollars less than the state's current
minimum wage.
The bill also would eliminate the maximum hours a minor over 16 can
work during school days and allow minors to work over 50 hours a week
when school is not in session.
Another bill, LD 516, is headed to the Senate floor for a vote after
being passed along party lines by a Senate committee, with Democrats
voting against the measure. It would allow minors 16 years and older to
work up to six hours a day and until 11pm on a school night.
Republicans currently control the state's House and Senate.
The new legislation comes after Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage ordered a 36-foot mural depicting the history of labor movements in Maine to be removed from the state's Department of Labor building.
"I’m trying to send a message to everyone in the state that the state
of Maine looks at employees and employers equally, neutrally and on
balance," he reportedly said.

"It's just too perfect after the flap with the mural," Maine
Democratic Party Chairman Ben Grant said. "First, the governor tries to
whitewash history and now this bill is trying to erase the progress of
child labor laws itself."
Republicans claim rolling back the child labor laws would give
employees and employers greater flexibility and let students save more
money for college. Democrats said they oppose the bills because it takes
money away from young employees and could harm students education.
"Rolling back child labor standards that protect teenagers will be
disruptive to their education, is shortsighted for our long-term
economic development goals, and could undermine our efforts to decrease
school drop-out rates," said Rep. Emily Cain of Orono, who serves as the
House Democratic Leader.

Bizarro world..........

From the Huffington Post article.
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."


Apparently, this is their goal to drive down wages and turn us into a third world country. They are trying to increase the pool of low wage workers when there is already millions upon millions of people looking for work and the wages are already going down. It's just like that paper Boehner distributed that said decreasing the federal workforce numbers and pay will create a larger pool of educated workers so, that private employers can decrease their labor costs. They are going way too far with all of this crap and the American people are not going to take much more.

Do they honestly believe they can and will get away with this, or are they intentionally trying to instill a riot? I mean, many a head has been firmly planted in the sand, but not that many to pull this off! When are all the right wing news commentators gonna wake up and realize they will soon be on the streets also?

Could they be any more obvious about who they are really working for and what their true agenda really is? They don't want to reduce unemployment. They want to increase it in order to bring the wages down even further. There are already millions upon millions of people trying to survive on part time minimum wage jobs that can't survive on them and millions and millions more with no income at all. That's not good enough for their corporate masters though. They want our standard of living completely destroyed and reduced to that of third world countries. If anyone thinks it is just a coincidence that all of these governors are doing this stuff at the same time then they are blind.