Gingrich Daughter's Teen Work May Have Violated Law [US Dept. of Labor: Child Labor Laws Broken?]

MSNBC ^ | January 18, 2012 | Eve Tahmincioglu

[Steelfish]

Gingrich Daughter's Teen Work May Have Violated Law

By Eve Tahmincioglu During the Republican presidential debate this week, Newt Gingrich shared a story about how his daughter worked as a church janitor when she was only 13.

“I was actually proud of my clean bathrooms,” Jackie Gingrich Cushman said in an telephone interview Tuesday, referring to the janitorial job she held at the First Baptist Church in Carrollton, Ga., in the early 1980s. “I learned work has value.”

But that work may have been a violation of federal child labor laws that her father has denounced as “stupid.”

Cushman was 13 when she took the part-time, minimum-wage janitorial job, scrubbing bathrooms two days a week using cleaning supplies and a bucket. She said working as a janitor was a "great experience." Asked if she was working legally as a janitor for the church, Cushman said, "I certainly hope so."

But based on child labor laws in effect now and in the 1980s, 13-year-olds are not allowed to hold janitorial jobs, said Michael Hancock, assistant administrator for policy in the wage and hour division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

[xzins]

I delivered advertising circulars for a local 5& dime starting at about 11 or 12. I forget exactly what we received. I think it was less than a nickle per circular, so we would get as much as 40 bucks for a thousand houses to split between my brother and I. Twenty bucks in the early 60’s was a lot of money to a kid.

And it was a great deal for the store owner, too, in terms of cost compared to other advertising or delivery methods.

We put them directly in the screen doors where they couldn’t be missed by the homeowners.

[rwilson99]

Newt said... child labor laws are stupid. Thanks for the confirmation.

[thesaleboat]

I started cutting grass in the neighborhood at 11, ####ing sue me.

[Rocky]

This article is not an indictment of Gingrich. Rather, unwittingly, the witless author is indicting herself, MSNBC, and the stupid government people who make and enforce these laws.

Child labor laws were supposedly instituted to protect children, not limit the ability of a child to make a few bucks.

This story is exactly what’s wrong with liberala and our overreaching nanny state.

[USS Alaska]

My father, a USW member also had a side business of cement contractor, bought a brick house {for next to nothing} in 1951 when Penn DOT was beginning to build the Parkway East going into Pittsburgh.

We tore the house down and moved it, piece by piece to a couple of acres that he bought {for $ 300}.

My two brother and I, using brick hammers and chisels cleaned every single brick, removed every nail from all the wood and my dad and uncles built a new house from the remnants of the torn down house.

we were working 60 hours weeks and none of us would have even thought about whining or bitching because we knew what would happen.

Hard work at a young age develops habits that serve you well for the rest of your life.

[Caribou]

I worked when I was 10 but that was in the ‘60s before the idiot liberals took control of the fed govt.

[zeugma]

What a stupid non-story. The establishment is getting desperate.

I've had a job since I was 10 years old. Don't know what it is like not to have a job except for a brief period during the 80s.

[who knows what evil?]

Michael Hancock, Team Leader at the Wage & Hour Division of the Department of Labor and a former Executive Director of the Farmworker Justice Fund

Times have changed...now when I see the word 'justice'; my marxist/communist alarm goes off...