Teamster News
Pasco, Teamsters close to deal Special magistrate sides with union on OT Tampa Tribune ...After more than three years, Pasco County and the Teamsters Local 79 may be close to approving their first contract following the second pro-union ruling by a special magistrate...
Bus drivers, company seek to stave off strike WPTZ News5 ...The Teamsters Union representing almost 70 Vermont bus drivers is still sequestered in one final negotiating session with the Chittenden County Transportation Authority in hopes of avoiding a strike...
MUA OKs Teamsters Pact Cape May County Herald ...Commissioners voted to ratify a new contract with its employees of Teamsters Local 331. The contract provides salary increases of 1.5 percent for 2013 and 2014, and 2 percent for 2015 and 2016...
Pa. Turnpike Must Use Teamsters For Mowing, Court Says Law 360 ...The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Friday affirmed an arbitrator’s ruling that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission had violated a collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters by hiring a subcontractor to cut grass, but it overturned a punitive damages award...
Teamsters file grievance over road work by Mahoning County inmates Youngstown Vindicator ...their use of day-reporting sheriff’s inmates to help fill the potholes should have been discussed in advance with Teamsters Local 377, which has filed a grievance concerning the use of free labor by the inmates...
Trade
In the Real World the Trade Deficit Is More Important Than the Budget Deficit Center for Economic and Policy Research ...The trade deficit matters hugely to the economy and to ordinary workers, there is no excuse for not giving it a substantial amount of coverage...
The War on Workers
'They're Not Dead Yet': Planning The Demise Of Labor Unions At CPAC Huffington Post ...Norquist didn't dwell on his Tennessee victory, instead steering the discussion toward a larger picture: how the right can fundamentally weaken unions through state legislation. That includes collective bargaining rollbacks like the monumental one carried out by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in Wisconsin in 2011, as well as right-to-work laws like those recently passed in Michigan and Indiana...
Which Side Is Your Pension On? Jacobin ... The corporate control of finance is not simply due to the weakness of regulations on the system. Instead, active state intervention since World War II has pushed labor’s finance into the hands of corporate fiduciaries...
Auto Regulators Dismissed Defect Tied to 13 Deaths New York Times ...Federal safety regulators received more than 260 complaints over the last 11 years about General Motors vehicles that suddenly turned off while being driven, but they declined to investigate the problem, which G.M. now says is linked to 13 deaths and requires the recall of more than 1.6 million cars worldwide....
Miscellaneous
London’s Laundry Business New York Times ...Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, gets it: you pay them, you own them. Mr. Putin was absolutely certain that Britain’s managers — shuttling through the revolving door between cabinet posts and financial boards — would never give up their fees and commissions from the oligarchs’ billions. He was right...
The Fat Drug New York Times ...decades of agricultural research has shown that antibiotics seem to flip a switch in young animals’ bodies, helping them pack on pounds...But what if that meat is us? Recently, a group of medical investigators have begun to wonder whether antibiotics might cause the same growth promotion in humans...
Facebook to Buy Drone Company Titan Aerospace for $60 Million NBC News ...Facebook is supposedly interested in Titan because its solar-powered drones — which can reportedly stay airborne for five years — can help Facebook achieve its goal of providing Internet access around the world...
Showing posts with label prison labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison labor. Show all posts
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Today's Teamster News 07.28.13
Funeral homes win ruling to hold striking Teamsters at bay Chicago Tribune ...A judge has granted a temporary restraining order to prevent Teamsters Local 727 from picketing funeral homes and halting alleged harassment of grieving families in its dispute with SCI Illinois Services Inc....
‘Made in Vietnam’ a concern for Teamsters Cumberland Times-News ...Teamsters union President James P. Hoffa, along with human rights leaders, say there’s a bleak reality behind imported clothing: Forced labor, child labor and gender discrimination, among other issues...
Will U.S. Face Trade Sanctions for Anti-Smoking Law? Public Citizen ...As the World Trade Organization (WTO) deadline passes today for the United States to comply with a WTO ruling against a U.S. ban on sweet-flavored cigarettes targeting youth, the spotlight shifts back to the WTO, which could now authorize trade sanctions if requested by Indonesia, the country that won the WTO challenge...
Prison Labor Booms As Unemployment Remains High; Companies Reap Benefits Huffington Post ..."nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day..."
SPLC secures release of Alabama man jailed after failing to pay $88 trash bill Southern Poverty Law Center ...Though debtors’ prison is supposed to be a thing of the past, a 60-year-old man in Baldwin County, Ala., spent two weeks in jail after failing to pay an $88 trash bill...
You Want a Living Wage With That? Fast Food Workers of N.Y.C. Prep for Another Strike Village Voice ...The strike will be their third since November, when fast food workers from Domino's, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell and other chains organized a massive walkout...
Fast Food, Low Pay (opinion) New York Times ... Workers with nothing to lose are demanding a living wage of $15 an hour, and gaining strength and confidence...
Evidence Mounts Agent Provocateurs Used by Brazilian Police Common Dreams ...Police sent infiltrators and agent provocateurs into crowds of protesters in Rio de Janeiro Monday—the first day of the Pope's visit to Brazil— as extensive video footage and witness testimony strongly suggests...
Where's the Beef?: The First Thing Obama Can Do By Himself to Create Good Jobs (opinion) Next New Deal ...He can start with an executive order to boost job quality for at least 2 million workers whose pay is financed by the federal government...
Minimum Wage Hike Would Boost Kids and Workers Out of Poverty AFL-CIO Now ...26% of kids younger than 3 are poor and the rate for African American children is 39%. Yet two-thirds of children living in poverty have at least one parent with a full-time, year-round job and many of those are minimum wage jobs...
What parents really think about school reform Washington Post ...most parents want strong neighborhood schools — not choices of schools for their children to attend. They don’t want public money diverted to private-school vouchers, or low-performing schools to be closed, or resources being taken away from traditional public schools to be used for public charter schools...
Student Loans Tied to Rise in Market Rates While Wall Street Banks Have Received a Fixed 6% Return from the Government for the Past Century Wall Street on Parade ... Loans taken out after July 1 of this year will rise to 3.9 percent for undergraduates; to 5.4 percent for graduate students; and to 6.4 percent for parents taking out the student loans...
The tax break that corporate America wants kept secret CNN Money ...Oracle, Google, and Amazon are just a few of the hundreds of large companies that have cut confidential deals with the IRS to help lower their tax bills, and critics want the agency to disclose the details of these complex pacts...
Apple’s record cash haul could repay Detroit’s debt eight times over Quartz ...Apple now has $146.6 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet, with some $106 billion kept offshore, the company said during today’s earnings call. That’s a record for the poster-child of tech companies maintaining mountains of overseas green. It’s enough to pay off bankrupt Detroit’s $18.5 billion in debt about eight times over...
New $444 million hockey arena is still a go in Detroit CNN Money ...Detroit's financial crisis hasn't derailed the city's plans to spend more than $400 million in Michigan taxpayer funds on a new hockey arena for the Red Wings...
Armed, Masked and Dangerous: the Militias of Privatization vs. the Public Good TruthOut ...Wisconsin, the battleground state where Governor Scott Walker has wielded his power with the grace of an elephant in a Crate and Barrel outlet store, has become the scene of armed, mask wearing, camouflaged security outfits patrolling the backwoods on the lookout for eco-terrorist types at the behest of a mining company more than willing to defile the environment for profits...
A voting rights showdown in North Carolina? CBS News ...North Carolina, a battleground state that's sure to be one again, is putting in place a new package of measures for voter ID requirements and - importantly - changing its early voting periods, among other measures, steps that many believe have it headed for a voting rights lawsuit...
‘Made in Vietnam’ a concern for Teamsters Cumberland Times-News ...Teamsters union President James P. Hoffa, along with human rights leaders, say there’s a bleak reality behind imported clothing: Forced labor, child labor and gender discrimination, among other issues...
Will U.S. Face Trade Sanctions for Anti-Smoking Law? Public Citizen ...As the World Trade Organization (WTO) deadline passes today for the United States to comply with a WTO ruling against a U.S. ban on sweet-flavored cigarettes targeting youth, the spotlight shifts back to the WTO, which could now authorize trade sanctions if requested by Indonesia, the country that won the WTO challenge...
Prison Labor Booms As Unemployment Remains High; Companies Reap Benefits Huffington Post ..."nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day..."
SPLC secures release of Alabama man jailed after failing to pay $88 trash bill Southern Poverty Law Center ...Though debtors’ prison is supposed to be a thing of the past, a 60-year-old man in Baldwin County, Ala., spent two weeks in jail after failing to pay an $88 trash bill...
You Want a Living Wage With That? Fast Food Workers of N.Y.C. Prep for Another Strike Village Voice ...The strike will be their third since November, when fast food workers from Domino's, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell and other chains organized a massive walkout...
Fast Food, Low Pay (opinion) New York Times ... Workers with nothing to lose are demanding a living wage of $15 an hour, and gaining strength and confidence...
Evidence Mounts Agent Provocateurs Used by Brazilian Police Common Dreams ...Police sent infiltrators and agent provocateurs into crowds of protesters in Rio de Janeiro Monday—the first day of the Pope's visit to Brazil— as extensive video footage and witness testimony strongly suggests...
Where's the Beef?: The First Thing Obama Can Do By Himself to Create Good Jobs (opinion) Next New Deal ...He can start with an executive order to boost job quality for at least 2 million workers whose pay is financed by the federal government...
Minimum Wage Hike Would Boost Kids and Workers Out of Poverty AFL-CIO Now ...26% of kids younger than 3 are poor and the rate for African American children is 39%. Yet two-thirds of children living in poverty have at least one parent with a full-time, year-round job and many of those are minimum wage jobs...
What parents really think about school reform Washington Post ...most parents want strong neighborhood schools — not choices of schools for their children to attend. They don’t want public money diverted to private-school vouchers, or low-performing schools to be closed, or resources being taken away from traditional public schools to be used for public charter schools...
Student Loans Tied to Rise in Market Rates While Wall Street Banks Have Received a Fixed 6% Return from the Government for the Past Century Wall Street on Parade ... Loans taken out after July 1 of this year will rise to 3.9 percent for undergraduates; to 5.4 percent for graduate students; and to 6.4 percent for parents taking out the student loans...
The tax break that corporate America wants kept secret CNN Money ...Oracle, Google, and Amazon are just a few of the hundreds of large companies that have cut confidential deals with the IRS to help lower their tax bills, and critics want the agency to disclose the details of these complex pacts...
Apple’s record cash haul could repay Detroit’s debt eight times over Quartz ...Apple now has $146.6 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet, with some $106 billion kept offshore, the company said during today’s earnings call. That’s a record for the poster-child of tech companies maintaining mountains of overseas green. It’s enough to pay off bankrupt Detroit’s $18.5 billion in debt about eight times over...
New $444 million hockey arena is still a go in Detroit CNN Money ...Detroit's financial crisis hasn't derailed the city's plans to spend more than $400 million in Michigan taxpayer funds on a new hockey arena for the Red Wings...
Armed, Masked and Dangerous: the Militias of Privatization vs. the Public Good TruthOut ...Wisconsin, the battleground state where Governor Scott Walker has wielded his power with the grace of an elephant in a Crate and Barrel outlet store, has become the scene of armed, mask wearing, camouflaged security outfits patrolling the backwoods on the lookout for eco-terrorist types at the behest of a mining company more than willing to defile the environment for profits...
A voting rights showdown in North Carolina? CBS News ...North Carolina, a battleground state that's sure to be one again, is putting in place a new package of measures for voter ID requirements and - importantly - changing its early voting periods, among other measures, steps that many believe have it headed for a voting rights lawsuit...
Friday, May 17, 2013
Corporations using prison labor to grab even more cash
Big business is always looking for a cheaper way to build a widget. And they have found a disturbing solution right here in the U.S. – prison labor.Inmates at the private Lockhart Texas prison, for example, took over the production of circuit boards used by companies such as IBM and Compaq. Meanwhile, at San Quentin State Prison in California, prisoners are handling work previously done at an assembly plant in Mexico.
Such arrangements are not limited to Texas and California, the report explains:
At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more.
All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.It has also been a boon for the private prison industry over the last few decades, the report notes:
Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.
After a law signed by [former President] Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.The Teamsters have long advocated against the creation of private prisons. Last year, we successfully helped stop Florida from privatizing nearly a third of the state's prisons. We've frequently detailed the abhorrent conditions at the nation's first privately-run state correctional facility in Ohio.
It's time to take the profit out of prisons and put it back in the hands of hard-working Americans.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Today's Teamster News 12.15.11
Enough Signatures Gathered, Walker To Be Recalled! New Dog Democrat ... The word has spread that over 550,000 signatures have been gathered to recall Scott Walker! This means the movement is passing its first milestone. Now they must gather more signatures to pad its victory in case some are thrown out by the Secretary of State...
Obama, Dems drop millionaire surtax to pay for payroll tax cut CNN ...In what would be a major concession, President Obama and Senate Democrats will drop their insistence that a surtax on millionaires pay for extending the payroll tax cut...
Sotheby's Handles Lockout, Costs Rise $2.4 Million, Ruprecht Given Bonus Bloomberg ...The temps and enhanced security since the lockout began helped account for a $2.4 million jump in “other compensation” expenses in the first nine months of the year...
The ALEC-Koch pipeline to Wisconsin Legislators and the Mining Bill Badger Democracy ...The Mining Bill released by Assembly Republicans late last week is clearly a case of Legislative patronage to a corporate sponsor – in this case, Gogebic Taconite Mining, LLC. Not surprising, but more disturbing, are the covert links to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Koch Industries, and closer to home, Hamilton Consulting in Madison...
Oklahoma to bring back state prison labor program; communities get help with maintenance work Associated Press ...the program will involve about 40 inmates who would be paid about $2 a day to do landscaping and cleanup tasks, the Tulsa World ... reported...
Inmates provide cost saving labor Rome News-Tribune ...66 work inside the prison, and another 28 have other prison details. That’s the majority, but the rest work in areas throughout the county, including public works, animal control and the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Authority...
Marriage Rate In America Drops Drastically Huffington Post ...it's important, at least for men, to be financially able to provide for a family before they get married. It may [also] be that some couples feel they don't have the financial wherewithal to have a wedding yet...
Obama, Dems drop millionaire surtax to pay for payroll tax cut CNN ...In what would be a major concession, President Obama and Senate Democrats will drop their insistence that a surtax on millionaires pay for extending the payroll tax cut...
Sotheby's Handles Lockout, Costs Rise $2.4 Million, Ruprecht Given Bonus Bloomberg ...The temps and enhanced security since the lockout began helped account for a $2.4 million jump in “other compensation” expenses in the first nine months of the year...
The ALEC-Koch pipeline to Wisconsin Legislators and the Mining Bill Badger Democracy ...The Mining Bill released by Assembly Republicans late last week is clearly a case of Legislative patronage to a corporate sponsor – in this case, Gogebic Taconite Mining, LLC. Not surprising, but more disturbing, are the covert links to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Koch Industries, and closer to home, Hamilton Consulting in Madison...
Oklahoma to bring back state prison labor program; communities get help with maintenance work Associated Press ...the program will involve about 40 inmates who would be paid about $2 a day to do landscaping and cleanup tasks, the Tulsa World ... reported...
Inmates provide cost saving labor Rome News-Tribune ...66 work inside the prison, and another 28 have other prison details. That’s the majority, but the rest work in areas throughout the county, including public works, animal control and the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Authority...
Marriage Rate In America Drops Drastically Huffington Post ...it's important, at least for men, to be financially able to provide for a family before they get married. It may [also] be that some couples feel they don't have the financial wherewithal to have a wedding yet...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Today's Teamster News 12.08.11
Inmate labor returns KTUL ..."$60 a month is still very cheap labor," said Pam Polk, Collinsville's (Okla.) city manager, who is looking forward to the productivity. "The inmate work program really helps us get some of the bigger projects done," she said...
The House passes “Let’s make it even worse Act” firedoglake ...Not satisfied merely doing nothing to create jobs while violating many of their claimed morality laws ... the GOP-led House of Representatives passed the following yesterday: A bill that would give the controlling party of either chamber of Congress veto power over any major new regulation...
Ind. Gov. Daniels says state found untouched $300M Associated Press ...Indiana Democrats called for investigations into how an administration sometimes held up by Republicans as a model for the rest of the U.S. could misplace so much money...
Poll: Elizabeth Warren soars 7 up over Scott Brown Boston Herald ...The new poll results are bound to send more shockwaves across the country, where Democrats and Republicans are closely watching to see whether the Harvard Law professor can knock off one of the GOP’s rising stars...
What Government Aid? Baseline Scenario ...the way our government currently distributes goodies makes it possible for people to think that they are paragons of individual self-reliance while still being enormous beneficiaries of other people’s tax dollars. That explains a lot about politics today...
Deutsche Bank CEO target of suspicious envelope: police Reuters ...a senior U.S. law enforcement official said it contained explosives...Ackermann is the face of capitalism in Germany and is one of the few senior managers in the country who is always surrounded by bodyguards...
The House passes “Let’s make it even worse Act” firedoglake ...Not satisfied merely doing nothing to create jobs while violating many of their claimed morality laws ... the GOP-led House of Representatives passed the following yesterday: A bill that would give the controlling party of either chamber of Congress veto power over any major new regulation...
Ind. Gov. Daniels says state found untouched $300M Associated Press ...Indiana Democrats called for investigations into how an administration sometimes held up by Republicans as a model for the rest of the U.S. could misplace so much money...
Poll: Elizabeth Warren soars 7 up over Scott Brown Boston Herald ...The new poll results are bound to send more shockwaves across the country, where Democrats and Republicans are closely watching to see whether the Harvard Law professor can knock off one of the GOP’s rising stars...
What Government Aid? Baseline Scenario ...the way our government currently distributes goodies makes it possible for people to think that they are paragons of individual self-reliance while still being enormous beneficiaries of other people’s tax dollars. That explains a lot about politics today...
Deutsche Bank CEO target of suspicious envelope: police Reuters ...a senior U.S. law enforcement official said it contained explosives...Ackermann is the face of capitalism in Germany and is one of the few senior managers in the country who is always surrounded by bodyguards...
Monday, November 7, 2011
Today's Teamster News 11.07.11
Dems rally troops over Issue 2 Toledo Blade ...Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, said Sunday night that defeating Issue 2 will send a message to Republicans and the right wing that organized labor will stand together to stop what he called an attack on working-class America...
Scott Walker recall underway: Democrats critical of petition filed by Republican donor The Daily Cardinal ...An unlikely source initiated the first petition to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker on Friday, a week and a half earlier than the start of the recall anticipated by Democrats...
Poll: Iowa Senate 18 race close, but Democrat leading Easter Iowa Government ...A Linn County race that could change the balance of power in the Iowa Senate is close enough it could go either way, but polling results released Sunday night indicate Democrats are likely to retain their majority...
A Hidden Toll as States Shift to Contract Workers New York Times ...Like many states and local governments struggling to cut costs, Michigan hopes to replace some government employees with contract workers who will do the same job for less...
Farmworkers plead for equal wages Yakima Herald-Republic ...Three union organizers and two farm workers gathered at Miller Park at corner of East E and Fourth streets to complain about the $22 an hour a Quincy orchard is paying the state for the use of inmates to pick apples...
Busted Flush - The World after the G-20 Meeting Strategic Insights ...And just to add to the whole sense of crisis in Europe, the real economy looks to be heading for anincreasingly deep downturn...
Two Studies Show Bad News for Americans Economic Populist ... the U.S. worker is getting squeezed in every direction. Until politicians start putting the U.S. worker first and foremost in policy considerations, it doesn't look like things will get better anytime soon...
Scott Walker recall underway: Democrats critical of petition filed by Republican donor The Daily Cardinal ...An unlikely source initiated the first petition to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker on Friday, a week and a half earlier than the start of the recall anticipated by Democrats...
Poll: Iowa Senate 18 race close, but Democrat leading Easter Iowa Government ...A Linn County race that could change the balance of power in the Iowa Senate is close enough it could go either way, but polling results released Sunday night indicate Democrats are likely to retain their majority...
A Hidden Toll as States Shift to Contract Workers New York Times ...Like many states and local governments struggling to cut costs, Michigan hopes to replace some government employees with contract workers who will do the same job for less...
Farmworkers plead for equal wages Yakima Herald-Republic ...Three union organizers and two farm workers gathered at Miller Park at corner of East E and Fourth streets to complain about the $22 an hour a Quincy orchard is paying the state for the use of inmates to pick apples...
Busted Flush - The World after the G-20 Meeting Strategic Insights ...And just to add to the whole sense of crisis in Europe, the real economy looks to be heading for anincreasingly deep downturn...
Two Studies Show Bad News for Americans Economic Populist ... the U.S. worker is getting squeezed in every direction. Until politicians start putting the U.S. worker first and foremost in policy considerations, it doesn't look like things will get better anytime soon...
Friday, September 9, 2011
GA county uses inmate firefighters
Sumter County officials use a nice phrase to disguise the ugly reality. They say they have "inmate firefighters." Here's Brent Williams, the Chairman of the Sumter County Board of Commissioners:
The combination of buying good used equipment and using inmate fire fighters saved a tremendous amount of money...the savings in insurance alone, will more than outweigh any costs that they've been paying for fire protection fees to the county.It's SLAVE LABOR, people. It takes jobs from law-abiding citizens and it encourages the massive incarceration of our population. Oh, and it's disgusting.
We only found out about this today because News4Jax reported politicians in nearby Camden County are considering doing the same thing. Here's their upbeat little story:
A select group of inmates may get the chance to get out of jail to fight fires and respond to medical emergencies in Camden County. At least that's an idea being tossed around to help solve the county's budget woes.Go back a couple hundred years and imagine News4Jax was covering the slave trade. It might go like this:
A select group of Africans may get the chance to leave the continent to work on farms and do housework in Camden County. At least that's an idea being tossed around to help solve the plantation's budget woes.Does anyone have any trouble understanding what's wrong with this?
Apparently some do. Reports Tech News,
...companies that use prison labor are Chevron, IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, Victoria's Secret and Boeing. Federal prisons operate under the trade name Unicor and use their prisoners to make everything from lawn furniture to congressional desks. Their Web site proudly displays "where the government shops first."And we can't forget Wisconsin, where Racine County immediately began using prisoners to replace union workers after
What the hell is happening to this country?
Friday, July 8, 2011
End the jobs crisis, ban prison labor
Long (8-plus minutes) but worthwhile news program on prison labor. We've written before about the Defense Department's penchant for using prison labor to make body armor and helmets. But this is worth watching, especially in light of today's hideous jobs report, and yesterday's news that Wisconsin is using prisoners now instead of union workers.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
WI swaps Teamsters for convict labor
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)