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America's Prince Charles "knights" a helpful "Republican" commoner

At a televised forum for downsized custodians at Tufts University on April 13, 1998, U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, scion of America's premier political dynasty, called Philip Hyde "My kind of Republican!" after Phil came up with three helpful suggestions for the custodians.

The suggestions went something like:

1. A situation like this calls for a lot of imagination of the kind Michael Moore has. Maybe he could be invited in to present a check for the $1.80 or whatever it is that Tufts executives are saving per hour by destroying the livelihoods of their long faithful employees.

2. In talking about this, maybe the custodians and their advocates could speak the executives' own language. Never mind "suffering families" - what about spending families! Now none of the custodians or their families are no longer going to patronize Tufts. The executives have cut their own market.

3. Someone asked about the long term solution to all this downsizing and betrayal, which is happening all over America. I suggest we convert overtime into on-the-job training and hiring, and if that doesn't create enough jobs to fully employ everyone at the 40-hr level that's been unnaturally frozen for only the last 60 years, let's resume our previous century-and-a-half history of adjusting the workweek downwards. If we spread around the free-market employment till everyone can support themselves, taxpayers won't get dragged into all kinds of government job programs and putting an end to our underground labor surplus will stop the kind of disrespect for employees that we're hearing about everywhere today.