Gingrich is reversing the equation.
He proposes to lay off the father who works as a janitor, the mother who works as a maintenance worker, and to "hire" the 10-year-old son, the 12-year-old daughter, to do the same work -- without union protection, without the same pay, benefits or on-the-job protections.
It is a crude calculus that threatens not just the economic security of blue-collar public employees and their families but the stability of communities, the sanctity of childhood and the basic premise that the exploitation of children is a evil that belongs to the nineteenth century -- not the twenty-first.
"The US outlawed child labor because it denied children the chance at a real education and allowed employers to exploit children -- and because children were often injured or killed on the job. That's why labor unions fought to pass laws outlawing child labor and protecting all workers," explains a letter of protest from AFSCME members and supporters. ...And the people you want to fire and replace with kids? A lot of them are parents. That job puts a roof over kids' heads, food on the table, and provides them with health care and the chance to get an education. That job is the only thing between a kid and poverty. Firing someone's mom and hiring the kid for less money isn't exactly the "process of rising." It is, in fact, the process of falling. It is the process of exploiting and destroying working families. The fact that you don't get that makes you not only out of touch, but utterly unqualified to serve in any elected position, let alone President of the United States."
Gingrich has gone to extremes. But he is not exactly an outlier, at least within his own party. Numerous Republican governors, led by Wisconsin's Scott Walker, are openly at war with the New Deal and collective-bargaining rights. But Maine Governor Paul LePage, a Tea Party Republican elected last fall, has raised the prospect of eliminating child-labor laws. And with their enactment of draconian Voter ID laws -- which require citizens to purchase identification in order to vote -- Republicans in states across the country appear to be reviving the poll tax -- a target of reformers in the New Deal and Progressive eras.
Something fundamental is at stake in the United States today.
There is a genuine debate about the essentials of modern society, and about how far some politicians would take us from them.
Gingrich's attacks on collective bargaining rights and on child-labor laws are a part of that debate. Other Republican presidential contenders need to be pressed for answers regarding the extent to which Americans agree with the former Speaker of the House.
Cross-posted from The Nation(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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