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Maine Child Labor Law: Teens To Work More During School Year

Lepage

First Posted: 06/ 1/11 03:29 PM ET Updated: 06/ 1/11 03:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Paul LePage, Maine's Republican governor, signed into law Tuesday a watered-down version of a controversial bill that would have rolled back the state's child labor standards. Although the most contentious elements had been struck by the time of its signing, the new law marks a small victory for two groups: Children who want to work more hours on school nights, and business owners who want more cheap labor.

The law boosts the maximum amount of hours a 16- or 17-year-old can work during the school year from 20 to 24 hours per week. It also raises the per-day limit from four hours to six, and allows children to work until 10:15 p.m. on school nights.

Although the law doesn’t affect wages, teen workers tend to earn significantly less than older workers. According to the most recent statistics from the Department of Labor, about 25 percent of teen workers made the minimum wage or less in 2010, compared with just 4 percent of workers age 25 and older.

The much stronger original bill, sponsored by Sen. Debra Plowman (R-Hampden), would have removed all the hour restrictions on 17-year-old workers, as well as the summer work restrictions on 16-year-old workers. Plowman could not be reached for comment. According to her biography on the state legislature page, the state senator is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and her family runs a garage-door installation business.

Rep. Timothy Driscoll (D-Westbrook), a strong opponent of the bill, told The Huffington Post that the final law "did get softened up a bit, but it still wasn't to my liking." Driscoll said the focus for teens should be school, not work, and that the new law "exploits children."

Driscoll also said he never really believed the Republican line that the bill was aimed at giving youngsters more work experience, noting that his suspicions grew during a state labor committee hearing on the proposed bill back in March.

"The only folks there supporting it were the folks in high-priced suits and shiny shoes," Driscoll said. "There weren't any children or parents there testifying in favor of it." (The Maine legislature's website does not feature video from past hearings.)

Story continues below

Instead, as Driscoll recalls, there were a representative from the Maine Restaurant Association, a representative from the Maine Innkeepers Association and a stakeholder from a Maine amusement park called Funtown Splashtown USA. Driscoll pointed out that restaurants, inns and amusement parks tend to rely on low-priced teen labor and would have an interest in seeing children allowed to work more hours.

Earlier this year, a bill was proposed in Maine that would have pushed the teen pay floor beneath the state minimum wage of $7.50 per hour, to a so-called training wage of $5.25 for the first 6 months of employment. That bill, titled "An Act To Enhance Access to the Workplace for Minors," was voted down in committee.

Similar proposals have been popping up in the last four years, according to Driscoll who's been in the legislature since 2004. The lawmaker said he usually hears the same argument for relaxing teen labor regulations: Some kids are cut out for school, and some kids aren't, so best to get the latter to work as soon as possible.

"I've always pushed back on that," said Driscoll. "What we should be doing is giving every kid a fair opportunity to get ahead and make sure they're afforded an education."

"They'll have the rest of their lives to work," he added.

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WASHINGTON -- Paul LePage, Maine's Republican governor, signed into law Tuesday a watered-down version of a controversial bill that would have rolled back the state's child labor standards. Although t...
WASHINGTON -- Paul LePage, Maine's Republican governor, signed into law Tuesday a watered-down version of a controversial bill that would have rolled back the state's child labor standards. Although t...
 
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COMMUNITY PUNDITS
Gaylord P Farqua   09:03 PM on 6/01/2011
The Governor is a true GOP/Tea Party visionary. Silently acknowledg­ing that his party nearly destroyed the nation's economy by deregulati­ng the banks, passing legislatio­n opening the doors to derivative­s, starting two unfunded and senseless wars all, while slashing taxes for the rich, he is looking ahead to when it will be necessary to harness all the "kid  Read More...
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
danglines
1 minute ago (2:40 AM)
Child labor is alive an well in Maine. What a lousy greedy governor.
Helloise
Healthy skeptic admires reason, trusts intuition
07:32 AM on 6/04/2011
The guv wants those dang kids payin' their fair share of the household expenses as soon as they hit double digits.
01:31 PM on 6/03/2011
Once again we can see the attack on minimum wage laws. Divide and conquer. First a new minimum wage for teens because it enables business owners to hire them and provide valuable training. Then the minimum wage follows because it is too high for the business owners to pay and hire the people they need.
Maybe we should just go back to indentured servitude. Teens can pay the owners of business for the training they get and adults can live in the company provided shack and purchase their food from the company provided store. At the end of the month everyone but the business will be more in debt.
Osusuki
KO fan
08:08 AM on 6/04/2011
I got a better idea. Maybe we should just go back to the New Deal. Not only would it be a lot better for the country, but us liberals could have tons of fun watching the rich conservati­ve proponents of industrial feudalism have fits of apoplexy when they got the word.
12:28 PM on 6/03/2011
YesI worked in Maine in the summer of 69,junior in high school,oh the joy,100 hrs a day with an indian pump,spray­ing power lines,with ESTERON 245,agent orange!! The joy of work,BS!!!­!!!!!
09:01 AM on 6/03/2011
God forbid. Why should a kid earn money to help the family budget? It is the government­'s job to take care of these kids. Every child should receive an amount ($12,000 a year) that they can save or spend on things so the parents don't need to.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
10:02 PM on 6/03/2011
Parents exploiting kids for money is the other side of the coin.
That problem with the elderly is bad enough. People need to
let kids be kids for a little bit of their lives. Retirement with dignity
also needs to be respected. People seeing dollar signs with
everyone and eveything that occupies every minute of their lives
is just rediculous­. I mow the old guys grass next door because he
can't. I think that just makes me normal.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Carl Caroli
08:43 AM on 6/03/2011
Great. Like kids aren't stupid enough already.
09:09 AM on 6/03/2011
Letting teens work outside of school hours and during the summer has nothing to do with them being stupid.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Carl Caroli
12:43 PM on 6/03/2011
It does when they use it as an excuse not to do their homework, which they will. At that age money is more important than grades, and I know from experience that work affects your grades. Anyone that thinks otherwise is fooling themselves­. During the summer? Great.
Helloise
Healthy skeptic admires reason, trusts intuition
07:36 AM on 6/04/2011
I think he meant uneducated­, not stupid. And the kids I come into contact with as a tutor have so much homework that they already work the same hours as their parents. When's the last time you were in high school?
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
juhar
12:45 PM on 6/03/2011
I'm substituti­ng "under educated" for word "stupid" - fanned and favorite.

Maine needs a regime change, otherwise it will have a permanent third-worl­d class of uneducated poor. Maine won't have to depend on undocument­ed immigrants to do menial jobs, the young under educated children of poor families will have their jobs permanentl­y.
Helloise
Healthy skeptic admires reason, trusts intuition
07:45 AM on 6/04/2011
Oops, I practicall­y duplicated your comment re the definition -- now pending -- and agree with the rest so an f
Helloise
Healthy skeptic admires reason, trusts intuition
07:46 AM on 6/04/2011
sorry juhar, my comment got truncated, but basically I agree with you. Apparently you can't fan someone without getting cut off after "f"
08:12 AM on 6/03/2011
What's with all the hostility for allowing teens to work more hours? We act as though 17 year olds are too dumb to make their own decisions. We're one of the few cultures with a complete disconnect and jagged transition into adulthood.

You can drive when you're 16, work longer hours when you're 17, vote and go to war when you're 18, drink when you're 21. At what point do we allow people to become adults?

We want to say that girls are old enough to obtain abortions without parental consent (which I agree with), yet they're not old enough to decide to work four extra hours a week during the school year? We want to say 15 year olds are mature enough to take an active participat­ion in what they learn at school, and that they have the ability to understand that they have freedom of speech in school and that they should be able to wear "controver­sial" clothing (which I agree with), yet they are not intelligen­t enough to work at 16?

It seems that it's the "adults" in the room making this a silly political issue. And it's the adults who always find a way to screw up teenager's lives.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
10:09 PM on 6/03/2011
Spoken like a true child.
10:21 PM on 6/03/2011
No. Spoken like an adult who understand­s that children are more capable of understand­ing the world around them better than adults.

As Bowie said "“And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, they are immune to your consultati­ons, they’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”

Give them some credit.
Helloise
Healthy skeptic admires reason, trusts intuition
07:49 AM on 6/04/2011
If I write that I fanned you using an abbreviati­on, I'll be cut off. You are so right. No wonder they hate planned parenthood­. They need to increase the number of wage earners in the household, a mindset common in third world countries where poverty reigns.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
07:01 AM on 6/03/2011
I remember there being a program in my high school for half day seniors
called distributi­ve education. It was paid for by the business community.
The students received on the job training and got credit and grades for it
It also led to scholarshi­ps for the students by some of the businesses­.
Can you immagine that now?
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
06:47 AM on 6/03/2011
The very idea that a child under 16 decides what the do
or don't want to do is rediculous­. What is going on that
this discussion even exists. It is just another sickness
on the part of the right wing to exploit.
08:05 AM on 6/03/2011
So then children have no rights, or don't know how to decide form themselves what they want or need?

Then you support the idea of 14 and 15 year old girls having to obtain permission from their parents before getting an abortion? Or do you think young teens shouldn't be sexually active because they don't know that they're doing?
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
09:53 AM on 6/03/2011
Parents have to have a responsibi­lity for the actions of their kids.
No, I don't think a 14 year old girl ought to just run the streets any
more than a 10 year old.
06:05 PM on 6/03/2011
Tell that to my 15 year-old full-time college student self a bit back. Go on. I dare you.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
09:22 PM on 6/03/2011
Like it or not a child has an adult legal guardian who is
responsibl­e for their actions. If you don't have then one
will be appointed by the court. You already know that.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
06:36 AM on 6/03/2011
The rain in Main is mainly in Paul's little brain.
No one under 16 should be employed in any official capacity.
Good leadership and Patriotic responsibi­lity by business
ought to guarentee full employment at all times by the adult
population­.
It is a damned shame that anyone would want to capitolize on
the elderly or the children in our society for labor when they
cannot keep the working age in our society employed.
How low can they go?
08:07 AM on 6/03/2011
"No one under 16 should be employed in any official capacity."

What a foolish thing to say. I had my first job when I was 14, working at Rudolph's Honey Custard Stand. I work there for two summers before I turned 16. I saved the money I earned and used it to pay insurance on my first vehicle when I obtained my driver's license.

You need to update your brain even more frequently­.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
09:46 AM on 6/03/2011
I worked also as a teen, but there was not some sort of
laws that capitolize­d on that as a way to exploit child labor.
06:05 PM on 6/03/2011
Who the hell are you to make assertions like that?
02:19 AM on 6/03/2011
My sympathies to his wife.
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rodjard
I Update my brain frequently
06:50 AM on 6/03/2011
Just looking at him ought to be grounds for divorce.
12:10 AM on 6/03/2011
This governor will do great things for profit; now business can hire these children for lower pay..and add the unemployme­nt of adults...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
CarryOn
no matter where you go, there you are
09:21 PM on 6/02/2011
Remember teaching in Montana during the oil boom. Students would boast about how they were going to drop out of school at 16 to go work the fields and make more money than their teachers..­.which was true. We asked them what they would do if they were injured or when the oil cycle went into slow mode...the­y didn't know they didn't care because they lived in the moment.

There will always be adults willing to take advantage of impetuous youth...th­ought the government was supposed to prevent that not encourage it.
08:36 PM on 6/02/2011
Macht Am Frei... so, the Republican education solution is too have the kids work more... Great.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
troutster
Deal with it!
06:23 PM on 6/02/2011
So now Maine has a whole new pool of potential workers. I wonder if that means their unemployme­nt rate automatica­lly goes up.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
bongoboy69
06:55 PM on 6/02/2011
that is the precise purpose of this law. republican­s are trying to increase adult unemployme­nt, because the GOP hates America.
Quitcherbichin
If you are posting here, thank a veteran
12:56 AM on 6/03/2011
Bongoboy..­.with asinine posts such as yours, you must be hitting the good stuff pretty hard because no person with an ounce of intelligen­ce would make such a ludicrous statement unless they were on something.
06:06 PM on 6/03/2011
You're funny.