GOP Wants To Make Children Pay For The Sins Of The Parents

Republicans are the reason why we can't have nice things.

For example, look at Florida.  The GOP makes some seriously idiotic decisions and then want to make their children pay the price for their stupidity. From a report by Chris Walkre (yes, THAT Chris Walker!):

The legislation was crafted to address worker shortages, which have come about due to Florida’s harsh laws targeting immigrant workers. In part because of those laws, there are currently only 53 workers available for every 100 job vacancies in the Sunshine State.

[...]

Current state law requires children under the age of 16 to end their work shifts no later than 11 pm and to start no earlier than 6:30 am on school days. The proposed legislation would remove those restrictions, allowing employers to schedule 14 and 15 year olds to work overnight shifts. The bill would also allow 16 and 17 year olds to be scheduled on overnight shifts lasting over eight hours on school days, and rescind the current restriction on working more than 30 hours per week when school is in session. The bill also does away with the lunch break requirement for older teens.

A separate proposal regarding student workers is being considered in the state House of Representatives. That bill would allow businesses to pay teenagers at rates below the state’s minimum wage.

In other words, the GOP, led by Old Pudding Fingers, let their racism run wild and ended up chasing away almost half of the state's work force.  To make up for the self-caused labor shortage, they now want their children to pick up the slack by working all night long. Then they want the kids to work for practically nothing.

No word about what the GOP proposes to do when the kids grades suffers. Knowing them, the GOP doesn't want the kids to get an education anyway.  They want them just educated enough to do the work since educated children grow up to be educated voters and that's never good for the GOP.

I have no doubt that the unions are looking at legal recourse.  I would recommend that they also look into organizing the kids.  If the GOP thinks that the kids are old enough to work overnight instead of getting enough sleep for school, then they're old enough to be treated with dignity and respect.

The Real War on Christmas!

 

By Jeff Simpson

Recently fake journalist, and WPRI republican hack Christian Schneider wrote a column on the wonders of offshoring(in a defense of Mary Burke).   Apparently you have to be an adult to understand what a great thing it is:

But while the outsourcing issue is a Sheboygan-sized target on Burke's campaign, Republicans should avoid simply hammering her for the act of outsourcing itself. It is an easy tactic — and in the end, winning is all that matters, after all — but campaigns should be careful how they foment anger among voters. Especially if it means confusing the public about a nuanced issue that deserves an adult conversation.

First, a point of clarification: While Burke's detractors refer to "outsourcing," they really mean "offshoring." Companies "outsource" their operations to other businesses when it isn't cost-effective to do the work themselves. It's not as if Grimace and Mayor McCheese are at the McDonald's headquarters milking cows to produce the company's dairy creamers; they outsource that task to an actual dairy company.

"Offshoring," on the other hand, means moving jobs overseas, where products can be produced cheaper due to lower labor costs. For the workers whose jobs are moved to India, China or Mexico, offshoring — to use a technical economic term — "sucks."

 We at CogDis pointed out that Schneider is economic illiterate, which was of a surprise to no one.   What I failed to do though was point out the "real world"consequences of offshoring that no one seems to want to have an adult conversation about(hint: don't look to Schneider for adult conversations).  

 

1.  What is considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world?  Bangladesh garment worker makes the list.    Who knew making your cheap T-shirt was so dangerous?  

In Bangladesh, there are 4 million garment workers — they’re getting starved to death too with pitiful wages, and they’re brutally overworked. And there are no health and safety standards. We saw the result of that in the Tazreen Factory fire on Nov. 24, 2012, which killed at least 117 workers. Less than a month later another factory, Smart Fashion, went up in flames.

 When we were in Bangladesh, a boy named Korshed —15 years of age — was working a night shift, all night long from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. during the monsoon season. It was July 17, 2012, when in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. a gigantic metal slab fell and crushed this young kid. Killed, dead on the spot. There’s no health and safety records whatsoever, the workers are just sitting ducks.

 2.  A lady in Oregon bought cheap crap Halloween decorations from China and found a letter:

"People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month)."
Ten yuan is equivalent to $1.61.
"People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others."

Schneider did get that right....$1.61/month is definitely cheaper labor.  See what happens when you get rid of the unions, companies are free to prosper!  Time for ACT11 to cut teacher pay again.  

3.   A reporter tried to see where her shirt was made in India and was lucky to make it out alive! 

 As a child, Aruna dreamed of going to college. But by the time she was 15, when her government-subsidized schooling ended, she understood that she was too poor. Then, a stranger promised to change her life. He offered her a job at a textile factory that has supplied companies including, until recently, UK-based maternity wear maker Mothercare. Her pay would be about $105 a month—enough for food for her family, her further education, and most importantly, the chance to build a dowry.


When Aruna arrived at the factory, about 40 miles from her home, she found a vast facility where close to 1,000 girls, many in their teens, lived 10 or 15 to a room. From 8 a.m. till 10 p.m. every day, including weekends, she fed and monitored rusty machines that spun raw cotton into yarn. Her bosses often woke her in the middle of the night because, she recalls, there was "always some sort of work, 24 hours a day." Aruna made just a quarter of the $105 a month she was promised, about $0.84 a day.

Aruna shows me a scar on her hand, more than an inch long, where a machine cut her. She often saw girls faint from standing for too long. One had her hair ripped out when it got caught in a machine. Others were molested by their supervisors. "They said we would get less work if we slept with them," Aruna says. Sometimes girls would disappear, and everyone would speculate whether they'd died or escaped. Still, she needed the money, so she worked there for two years.

 Last April's building collapse in Bangladesh's Rana Plaza, which killed more than 1,000, briefly drew attention to the plight of garment workers. India is an even larger global player than Bangladesh: It's the third-largest textile and garment exporter in the world (after China and the European Union), with about $29 billion in 2012 sales. Between June 2012 and June 2013, the United States imported about $2.2 billion worth of cotton clothing from India, and that number is expected to grow as India ramps up its textile industry.

 4.  In Jordan a factory that produces products for WalMart, sexual abuse is a way of life:

In June, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights released a report alleging that workers producing clothing for Walmart, Target, Macy's, Kohl's and Hanes at a factory in Jordan have been routinely beaten, underpaid and forced to work hours in excess of what the local law allows. The report added that workers have been forced to live in bed bug-infested dormitories that lack heat and hot water, despite the snow and ice that are a feature of local winters.
The report also alleged a pattern of widespread sexual abuse of female employees at the Classic Brands factory complex. The factory employs some 4,800 people, mostly guest workers from South Asia. One manager repeatedly raped female Sri Lankan workers, prompting a strike late last year, according to the report. Workers wanted the manager fired. Instead, the factory's owner sent the manager on a recruiting mission to South Asia as a means of temporarily removing him from the complex. The owner did not publicly discipline the manager or remove the man from his employment, said Charles Kernaghan, the institute's director, and the lead author of the study.

Whats a few rapes of 13 year old girls, they aren't in school anyway.    When your working a 17 hour shift, 7 days a week,  its the only way they get a break.  

5.  There there was this clown that people actually thought could be President of the United States. 

 And the one thing that gets you mad is someone saying "Happy Holidays"?