Now that the Koch brothers' favorite lackey destroyed collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin's government workers, Racine's county executive said he'll have prison inmates do work that Teamsters had been paid to do.
Penal servitude, how lovely.
The Cap Times reports:
Racine County Executive Jim Ladwig told several media outlets earlier this week he plans to add shoveling, landscaping and painting to the to-do lists of county inmates. Until recently, inmates were only allowed to cut the grass along highways.Last June, Racine County tried to use inmates to cut the grass, but Teamsters Local 43 sued because it had a contract with the county. A judge sided with us. Not anymore, thanks to Scotty boy and the six Republican senators who'll be recalled within six weeks.
That changed Wednesday when the state's controversial collective bargaining law took effect.
Besides losing their right to negotiate over the percentage of their paycheck that will go toward health care and retirement, unions also lost the ability to claim work as a "union-only" job, opening the door for private workers and evidently even inmates to step in and take their place.
ThinkProgress notes,
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.Ya think? Here's wikipedia on the "convict lease" system so popular in the South after the Civil War:
Since the impoverished state governments could not afford penitentiaries, they leased out prisoners to work at private firms. Douglas A. Blackmon argues that it was Southern policy to intimidate blacks; tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested and leased to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations.[8] The state governments maximized profits by putting the responsibility on the lessee to provide food, clothing, shelter, and medical care for the prisoners, which resulted in extremely poor conditions, numerous deaths, and perhaps the most inhumane system of labour in the United States.[9] Reformers abolished convict lease in the Progressive Era, stopping the system in Florida in 1919. The last state to abolish the practice was Alabama in 1927.In not-so-bad news from Wisconsin, a second lawsuit against the collective bargaining rights law has been filed. Courthouse News Service reports a coalition of unions sued Walker in federal court,
...claiming his "Budget Repair Bill" violates the Municipal Employment Relations Act and the Constitution.
The unions...say the union-busting law illegally amends the Municipal Employment Relations Act and "effectively undermines and substantially eliminates the right of local government employees to bargain with their employers."
The unions say their ability "to maintain themselves and to express the collective viewpoint of their members" is substantially impaired by the bill, also known as Wisconsin Act 10. They say it impairs individuals' right to associate with and support their unions of choice.
