Think I'm kidding about slavery?

Hey Folks,

In the last posting you saw that hell hath no fury like rich fucks kept from squeezing the last drop of blood out of the people. Well, that was in Brazil; we're a little behind the curve here, but we're trying.

What is presented as a Newspaper in Columbus, Ohio has already started the reaction to the new Democratic governor. Before he was elected, a generation of Republican Vampires had steadily advanced The Plan to reduce Ohio's work force to penury - with the goal of increasing profits for the elite few. They've made good progress, as demonstrated by the increasing poverty rate and the increasing incidence of flight by our young people.

This was accomplished by a state government fully owned by business interests and the wealthy, a fact demonstrated by the legislature's refusal to uphold the constitution by following four rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court that the method of school funding unconstitutionally favored the rich over the working class.

When it comes to the constitution v class privilege, there's no contest.

So it isn't surpising that as soon as the new governor acted to better enable working people to pay their disproportionally heavy taxes, the forces of reaction (the Dispatch in the forefront) should spring angrily into action.

The paper, after consistently supporting the legislature's refusal to follow the court rulings to improve schools, has the gall to call picking workers' pockets "Ohio’s most successful effort to boost public schools." For Christ's sake, it only dealt with building projects, and that's the best Ohio can do?

The editorial is directly below, and is followed by my response.

- Uke Man



Putting politics first
Favoring union labor will raise cost of school-building program
Columbus Dispatch editorial
Monday, February 26, 2007

In tossing a juicy bone to his political supporters, Gov. Ted Strickland may diminish Ohio’s most successful effort to boost public schools.

Allowing inflated labor costs for companies that participate in the state-funded school-building program means that taxpayers’ money won’t go as far as it could to replace decrepit school buildings with new ones.

The program, overseen by the Ohio School Facilities Commission, has drawn praise for the efficiency with which it has contributed to the construction or rehabilitation of more than 480 school buildings, worth more than $5 billion.

A major reason for that success was the General Assembly’s decision, when the commission was formed in 1997, to exempt schools from the 1931 law requiring publicly funded construction projects to pay union-scale wages, referred to as prevailing wage, even when hiring nonunion workers.

The commission took that a step further, adopting a policy that forbade school districts from requiring contractors to pay prevailing wage on commission-funded projects.

Strickland has undone that by appointing union-friendly members to the commission, which voted this month to lift the rule against requiring prevailing-wage labor. It also adopted a policy that requires contractors to use experienced personnel and to pay into employee medical and retirement plans.

Up to now, allowing the market to set wages, instead of adhering to artificially inflated ones, has saved taxpayers money and put more children in safe, modern school buildings.

The Dispatch in 2001 spelled out the typical savings. The Olentangy Local School District had spent $7 million to build an elementary school while the prevailing-wage law still applied to school districts.

After the 1997 law freed school districts from the requirement, Olentangy built another, similar elementary and saved about $500,000 in labor costs.

But Strickland has supporters in organized labor to reward, and their time apparently has come.
School districts should bear in mind that the commission’s new policy does not require the use of prevailing-wage labor. They should honor their fiduciary duty to use taxpayers’ money as wisely as possible, and choose contractors who offer taxpayers the best price — not those with the right political connections.



To the Editor,

In the editorial “Putting politics first” you reported that by avoiding “prevailing wage” standards, one area school had saved $500,000 by taking it out of the workers’ pockets. That got me to thinking. Even more money could be saved using indentured servants brought in from poor countries as is done in Saudi Arabia. The use of prison labor would increase the savings even further.

As the editorial pointed out, under the invisible hand of the Market contractors didn’t have to hire experienced people; neither did they have to pay into employee medical and retirement plans. Under the Indentured Servant plan, no one would have experience and contractors could simply send sick or aging workers back to their own country.

Now, of course, some might argue that indentured servants would put millions of Americans out of work, and the resulting poverty would cause a tremendous increase in crime. Well, sure. But, no problem.

The increase in crime would lead to an expanded prison population which, in turn, would provide a larger prison workforce to help reduce taxpayer expense and advance commerce. Once all working Americans are in prison, the ultimate savings will have been achieved, with labor costs approaching zero.

And the cost of imprisoning all working Americans could be covered by severely taxing the income of the indentured servants. Perhaps – as in Haiti– this would finally free the wealthy of all taxation.

What a great plan! The only possible improvement might be the reinstitution of slavery. This time based on class rather than race.


Yours – Tom Harker