Wisconsin
Related: About this forumUnion Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law
By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jul 6, 2011 at 4:57 pm
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkers (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, its helping a different group in Wisconsinites inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.
As the Madison Capital Times reports, 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. Inmates are not paid for their work, but may receive time off of their sentences.
The law went into effect last week, and Racine County is already using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and another basic maintenance around the county that was previously done by county workers. The union had successfully sued to stop the country from using prison labor for these jobs last year, but with Walkers new law, they have no recourse. Watch a report from Fox6 in Green Bay:
The Washington Examiner called Racines move another success story and all great news for Wisconsin taxpayers. Hopefully, well see more of it. So far, it appears no other jurisdiction has followed Racines example for now. It may just be a matter of time to allow existing union contracts to expire. The spokesperson for the Sheriffs Office of Dane County, which includes Madison, said, Nobody in our jail will be benefiting
at this time from the new law, but the left the door open for future changes.
While giving prisoners more work and activity options is generally positive, using free inmate labor to replace public sector workers is a disturbing trend.http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/06/261319/scott-walker-prison-labor/
Lots of talk about this, but I wondered if anyone here is union and what you think.... This makes me real sad that is going on....
alittlelark
(18,890 posts)bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)"Are the workhouses still in order?"
Yep, I can hear all those dumb so and so's who don't get this going "Heck, ya, let 'em do some work, cushy prison life, eh?"
orwell
(7,775 posts)...Scott Walker.
Or better yet, send Scott to prison so the inmates can show him some love...
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)This is slave labor, plain and simple. The use of prison labor to provide free labor will just drive up incarceration rates.
This needs to be STOPPED.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)And there we will do for free what we used to get paid enough to live in the free world with.
JustAnotherGen
(31,886 posts)http://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385722702
Both a book and a documentary. When I read what you have written - that's the first thing that comes to mind.
midnight
(26,624 posts)and while I was bothered by prison labor being sold as a way to rehab prisoners so when they left prison they would have skills doesn't really seem to be what the prison industry really has in mind...
R. Sen. Ron Johnson makes his profits off of the backs of those imprisoned by real or trumped up charges is worrisome...
JustAnotherGen
(31,886 posts)It sure didn't. I feel the same way about Prison Labor and use and abuse of people without papers.
mojowork_n
(2,354 posts)It's another clue to putting together the Big Picture.
Today's jigsaw piece to help claraify the overall
goals of the Divide and Conquer Strategy.
Put that together with Yesterday's News:
Standing in front of the NAACP (but really
addressing his "base" , Willard took
the opportunity to lay down the new
economic Law:
Decoding the Orwellian signifiers, "no
more free stuff" means, regardless of
race, THOSE WHO OWN will no longer
have any financial obligations toward
THOSE WHO OWE.
(All that nonsense about killing Obamacare
in order to give us -- everything that's
already in it -- the irrationality of all of
that is proof enough that nothing that's
said in this campaign season means what
it's supposed to.)
With Debtors' Prisons making a comeback,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132973/Breast-cancer-survivor-handcuffed-thrown-jail-mistaken-280-medical-debtors-prisons-return-U-S.html
...and the cost of healthcare responsible for
more bankruptcies, bad credit histories,
and ruined lives than anything else.....
So that's it, the financial plan for America's
Future.
Corporations (People), Property (Piles
of Cash) will own all the Units of Labor
Exchange (Us). And we'll all be in debt
to the Company Store, forever and ever,
amen.
With nothing in between, an infinite gulf
of empty, black space between Owners
and Owers.
midnight
(26,624 posts)We're all born to families in debt: in debt for our education, in debt for our homes, in debt for our basic needs...
Everyone seems to owe something, and we're continually told it's our own fault, we got ourselves into this, we should feel guilty or ashamed.
But how is it possible that something like 99% of Americas could all have simultaneously failed to figure out how to properly manage their money?
And who do we all owe this money to? Where did they get it all?
mojowork_n
(2,354 posts)typing in the dark on an unfamiliar laptop keyboard, kinda getting
late already, but I just wanted to say those are some good questions.
...It can't all be just from bank fees, privatized parking tickets, and
the other assorted, ankle-biting collections coyotes.
midnight
(26,624 posts)find out how Scott Walker was able to remove money from someone in New York via her credit card as a donation to his re-election campaign....
mojowork_n
(2,354 posts)She then contacted ProPublica, who requested she call Capital One again. Capital One informed her that they flag merchants who put through many illegitimate charges. They then confirmed that they have flagged any Scott Walker activity, according to Nellis.
hue
(4,949 posts)midnight
(26,624 posts)AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)"Work makes you free"
Sign placed over the entrance to Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
itsrigged
(116 posts)Is this U-tube video what you were referring to about who Snot Walker had Hired both as Milwaukee executive and then again as governor to protect and guard the entrance to the Capital from the public... even a state official that got taken down to the ground by the waken nut orifice guys?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=V-bZk_Gc7pA