Harris wants to end subminimum wages for disabled workers—if they're not behind bars

www.motherjones.com Harris wants to end subminimum wages for disabled workers—if they're not behind bars

40,000 people would benefit. Hundreds of thousands more will still earn pennies an hour.

Work Reform @lemmy.world Harris wants to end subminimum wages for disabled workers—if they're not behind bars

13 comments

Good luck changing the 13th amendment to get that in prison part removed. Realistically it's not going to happen for a long time. It's stupid to campaign on something you have no feasible way to achieve.

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- if they’re not behind bars
  
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  Article says "Except in prison" no idea why lemmy title is different. This is just more of the ol: "this is why this good thing that changes things for the better is bad".
  
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- The 13th Amendment doesn't say "You must use slave labor" and, in fact, doesn't even say "Prisons have a right to do slave labor," it just says "This stuff we're saying here forbidding slavery doesn't apply to penal labor", it's negative, not positive.
  
  Anyway, my original point is that you absolutely do not need to change the Amendment to amend prison labor laws, hence how prison labor laws have been amended in many states already.
  
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  Look I do not agree with for profit prisons. I'm not defending it. I'm just stating facts. You can try to convince the 6-3 conservative majority supreme court that the 13th amendment needs to reinterpreted, see how far that takes you.
  
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- If you read the article (or even just the headline) you'll see that she isn't campaigning against the 13th amendment's punishment clause. She's campaigning on abolishing subminimum wages for the disabled.
  
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  Yes and I'm criticizing the headline for sticking that in when it's irrelevant.
  
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- Why not? I would expect ending slavery to pass in 2024.
  
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I mean, sure? If someone goes to prison you probably don't want them making a full time wage, while having everything else paid for. Its meant to be worse than living out.

Different discussions can and should be held if they are being forced to work, for profit prisons, or options to work and gain skills or experience in trades, or to fund study. But at a surface level it sounds fair.

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- "It's meant to be worse than living out" is full-blown Victorian welfare.
  
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  Care to elaborate? Because what I'm seeing is that you want those imprisoned, who are deliberately separated from society and deprived them of rights like personal freedom, to have the same rights and access to advancement?
  
  Make no mistake, im not saying deprive them of basic human right - the prison system is bad enough. But they are meant to be deprived of freedom.
  
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