this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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Work Reform

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[–] BigTuffAl@lemmy.zip 47 points 23 hours ago

Yeah the USA is a slave empire, they have to be stopped.

[–] Felis_Rex@lemmy.zip 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Y'all really ain't ready for the slavery in the US agriculture sector conversation. It's really bad, and this ICE shit is just acceleration

[–] criscodisco@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or why they have decimated public education in black communities.

And just in general. Black communities were definitely hit hardest and first, but the damage isn't solely contained there.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 16 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Remember kids, if the republicans start complaining that someone is stealing their money, it means the state is.

Alabama ranks at a surprising 10th in most federally dependent at 61%

Note: No. 1 means most dependent. https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700

[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 21 points 23 hours ago (7 children)

The 13th Amendment allows for forced labor in prisons. This is how Trump and the GOP will reinstitute slavery in the USA.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It's been a feature of the US prison system since the end of Reconstruction. This isn't something Trump invented.

Bright Blue California rejected a measure to ban prison slavery just a year ago.

[–] Sharkticon@lemmy.zip 5 points 22 hours ago

They weren't suggesting Trump invented it. They were suggesting Trump plans to expand it, nationalize it, and institutionalize it.

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[–] locahosr443@lemmy.world 12 points 22 hours ago

Offered to non violent misdemeanor offenders... First person has 15 year sentence...

Literally slavery, what a 3rd world country

[–] ideonek@piefed.social 33 points 1 day ago

USA - the country that have "except" in thier "no slavery" rule. I'm not even joking. Thats 100% true.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Driving Uber, I hear so many stories like this. For example, I never knew you paid for this "privilege," and apparently you PAY TO BE ON PROBATION!? Among so much other insane bullshit.

[–] Cataath@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

Even more insane is prisoners (and their families) end up paying for their incarceration. When you consider that 40% of African American men are under some form of penal supervision, this goes a long way to explain why so many seem to be in a perpetual state of poverty.

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

when i was in my early 20's i had a friend who was on house-arrest. She unknowingly convinced me that if i ever found myself in her situation just to do the time instead aiming for a house arrest plea-deal for similar reasons.

[–] MML@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago

Lol I paid $5000 for a plea deal, along every step of the way I've confirmed with my lawyer and judge that I can just pay my way out

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Slavery never went away. It's just been rebranded, repackaged and sanitized.

[–] deHaga@feddit.uk 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Not American, but isn't that what the 13th amendment did? Make slave labour legal for prisons?

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 7 points 23 hours ago

the crazy thing about this story (aside from the slavery) is that the voters of Alabama voted to outlaw that exception at the state level but ever since then, their governor has overidden that effort.

[–] chicagohuman@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

Yep!

Section 1. 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.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[–] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

As a foreigner, you probably know more about the US Constitution than most US citizens. And I'm saying that as a natural born US citizen.

[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

And coincidentally, there will be a call to "crack down" on smaller crimes, make it easier to do time.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The more I learn about the US, the more I realise the shining city on the hill I believed in as a child is actually a giant dumpster fire.

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's like Trump being what poor people envision as rich.

America is what other countries view as prosperous, when in reality it's just 10 rich people in a trench coat, and 350 million suffering underneath.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

"Land of the free" fucking lol

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 14 hours ago

Welcome to the United Snakes
Land of the thief home of the slave
The grand imperial guard where the dollar is sacred and power is God

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is the future of MAGA America. Imagine how much more profitable corporations could be if 90% of their workforce is AI, Robotic, or Federally-provided Slave Labor, privately managed by a Trump-owned company?

What do you think all those new regional concentration camps and an enormous paramilitary organization are going to do when the "immigrant problem" has been largely handled? Trump and Stephen "PeeWee Himmler" Miller and Trump are getting into the slavery business.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

This crap predates MAGA by a long long time - after all, as somebody else pointed out, the 13th Ammendment of the US constitution explicitly allows slavery for those convicted of crimes.

Whilst MAGA is obviously going to abuse the shit out of this, this kind of infrastructure for Fascism has long been in place and was already used even before MAGA was a twinkling in the eyes of whatever Koch Brother's Funded Think Tank employee who came up with it.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Valid, the 13th Amendment is an abomination, but it was mostly used as a rationalization to suppress wages in prison workshops, and exempt them from minimum wage. It was never intended to be the foundation for establishing a new system for our entire nation's entire economy.

But we are approaching a labor crossroads in this country, and while MOST American workers haven't been paying much attention to the upcoming revolutions in AI and Robotics, Sociopathic Oligarchs and the Corporations have been laser-focused on it for a few decades, and their objectives are finally at hand.

As if replacing much of their workforce with tireless tools like AI and Robotics wasn't wonderful enough for their profits, now MAGA is dangling a shiny bauble that only the most psychopathic of Ferengi Oligarchs could dare to dream about - a return to literal slavery, a nearly free labor pool of workers who can be treated in any way. No worries about rights, benefits, safety, regulations, etc. Imagine how much more profitable they could be?

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

suppress wages in prison workshops, and exempt them from minimum wage

And how is that in any way form or shape a good thing?

Prison forced labor is just Indentured Servitude with extra steps to give it the appearance of legitimacy and fairness.

It seems to me (not at American) that the intention to exploit people who have no other choice was there from the start. Create a structure were you can get cheap/free labor of people who have been deemed by others to be LABEL (in this case, a felon) and deprived of their freedom and you always end up with more and more people being given LABEL and deprived of their freedom so that the can be used as cheap/free labor.

The United States has long been the nation in the World with the highest percentage of people in prison, so one either believes that human beings in the US are different and more prone to crime or that there is a higher incentive in the US than elsewhere at the level of who controls those things to put people in prison and getting cheap or even free work sure sounds a lot like such an incentive.

The well was poisoned from the very start.

As I see it, this is far from the only way in which America is Exceptional but not in a good way and if one thinks further out from that, one can conclude that movements such as MAGA, the way workers are treated and a lot of other phenomenons in the US rooted in not treating ones' fellow human being as a person are in fact all part of one broad systemic cultural and political problem.

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[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

So if they can get rid of all the brown minorities, then there won't be anyone to protest against re-enslavement of black people! So it will be a white world again!

With concubines, slaves, torture, murder, abuse of women!

My wife did not get her ballot for this election! WTF! We've been voting for many years by mail.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Is your wife a white male land owner ?

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[–] bagsy@lemmy.world 82 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Slavery is illegal except for prisoners. Forcing prisoners to work is perfectly constitutional.

The bill of rights is wrong and must be admended. Closing this loop hole will kill the for profit prison industrial complex.

[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 hours ago

Btw, the bill of rights is only the first 10 amendments. The 13th is just an amendment.

[–] LemmyBruceLeeMarvin@lemmy.ml 35 points 1 day ago

The only thing Capitalists love more than wage theft is slavery

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 198 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)
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[–] choui4@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago

This is slavery under Neo-Liberalism

[–] switcheroo@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That is slavery.

Hopefully the decent folk in Alabama-- wherever they hide-- boycott the fuck outta those places.

[–] Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Here’s a reminder that the 13th amendment didn’t abolish slavery. It simply added the “they must be a criminal before you can enslave them” qualifier…

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

Emphasis mine. Why do you think the model for the modern police force started as slave catchers, and then pivoted hard towards “law enforcement” after the civil war? The US already had law enforcers. They were called sheriffs (county), troopers (state), and marshals (federal). The individual cities and towns didn’t have their own independent police forces until after the civil war… Instead, the county sheriff would deputize people to enforce laws in the individual cities on the sheriff’s behalf. And those brand new city-level police forces were manned by, you guessed it, former slave catchers. And they never really stopped catching slaves. They just changed what they called it.

The US thrives on slavery, even today, with private prisons as the modern slave owners.

[–] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 133 points 1 day ago (5 children)

And how is that different from slavery?

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 147 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It isn't, this is how they get around it, and literally wrote into the amendment banning slavery to leave a carve out for prisoners

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[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 103 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The constitution makes slavery legal for prisoners

Says so right there literally just read the 13th amendment

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[–] DevotedShitStain69@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'd sabotage those companies if I were forced to do anything other than my time.

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[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Normalize refusal to do business at places who use prison labor.

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Normalize burning those places to the fucking ground.

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