Rolling Back Protections for Child Labor in the Name of ‘Parental Rights’ + Notes

One hundred years ago this month, I was reminded by Portside’s “This Week in People’s History” feature (5/29/23), a constitutional amendment passed both houses of Congress, with large majorities, and went to the states for ratification. It remains a proposal, not a law, to this day, because the necessary three-quarters of states didn’t accept it.

In April 2023, the Washington Post (4/23/23) reported on the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank with a lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, that’s crucially behind these state-level moves to undermine rules to keep children from working long hours in dangerous conditions. The Iowa state senate had just approved an FGA-maneuvered bill letting children as young as 14 work night shifts.

Does every story on child labor need to mention the advocacy group? Of course not. But if you consider the rollback of child labor laws a problem, connected to other problems, then calling groups like them out adds something key to understanding that problem and how to address it.

Rolling Back Protections for Child Labor in the Name of ‘Parental Rights’

Related SourceWatch Articles:

Foundation for Government Accountability

Opportunity Solutions Project

American Legislative Exchange Council

Atlas Network

Bradley Foundation

Cato Institute

Ed Uihlein Family Foundation

Franklin News Foundation

Koch Family Foundations

Sarah Scaife Foundation

State Policy Network

The 85 Fund

There’s more, but I’m not going to beat a dead horse with this one. They’re basically the same groups that have been trying to privatize education, destroy unions, etc.

[2013] The Radical Right’s Asian Pitbull

In 1990 the IEA was merged into the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, another neo-conservative foundation started in 1988 by, among others, William Bennett, Reagan’s Education Secretary. Madison continued to fund the Collegiate Network until 1995 when its headquarters was moved to Wilmington, Delaware and placed under the financial support of another neo-conservative organization called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). Today ISI funds about 80 right wing college newspapers.
— Read on goldsea.com/Personalities/Malkin/malkin.html

I like Michelle and Ann. 🤷🏼‍♀️