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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Charles Brown wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>"The Thirteenth Amendment does make slavery illegal even in a
private<BR>enterprise, glory be."</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>xxxxxxxxxxxxx</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From their paper "Toward a New Labor Law" by Jim
Pope, Ed Bruno and Peter Kellman (for the Labor Party)----</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://campaignforworkerrights.org/paper.html">http://campaignforworkerrights.org/paper.html</A>
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><B><FONT face=Arial,Bold size=5>
<P align=left>5. The Labor Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution</P></B></FONT><FONT face=TimesNewRoman>
<P align=left>If you mention the labor amendment to the United States
Constitution today, most people get a puzzled look on their faces. They know
that the first amendment guarantees the right of free speech, and they may even
know that the same amendment secures the right of assembly. But few have ever
heard of the labor amendment. It takes awhile before they realize that you are
talking about the thirteenth amendment, which provides: “Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.” At that point, they are likely to ask what in
the world the thirteenth amendment could possibly have to do with labor rights
today; after all, the amendment was intended to do away with slavery, a goal
that was accomplished more than a century ago.</P>
<P align=left>But according to the Supreme Court, </FONT><B><I><FONT
face=TimesNewRoman,BoldItalic>the purpose of the thirteenth amendment is not
simply to eliminate slavery, but also “to make labor free by prohibiting that
control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for
another’s benefit.” </B></I></FONT><FONT face=TimesNewRoman
size=1> </FONT><FONT face=TimesNewRoman>Before the NLRA, unionists
understood from their own experience that in a modern industrial economy there
was no way to prohibit “that control by which the personal service of one man is
disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit” without the rights to organize,
bargain collectively, strike, and act in solidarity with other
workers.</FONT></P>
<P align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Mast</FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>