Service Industry Unions

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Apr 20 08:20:36 PDT 1999


Jennifer A Young wrote:


> Welfare reform coupled with an crummy, ignored
> low end labor pool constitutes legalized slavery in my book.

I agree with the emotional force behind Jennifer's use of "legalized slavery," but since what can *technically* be called legalized slavery is now occurring, and increasingly, in America's gulag, the federal and state prisons, I believe it is worthwhile to find other terms of opprobrium for the conditions she refers to so as not to weaken the force of "slavery" in its narrowest sense.

(Workfare is *close* to actual slavery, but I think we should find a different term for it also.)

Carrol



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