Monday, February 16, 2009

And speaking of abusing workers...

Mentally-retarded (note the explanation of "Register's use of 'mentally retarded') men from Texas shipped to an eastern Iowa town to work in a meat-processing plant, paid a pittance, and kept in squalid, understaffed housing.

Criminal charges are in order--as they were in 2001, when the state did nothing (please note Ag Sec Vilsack, was the governor of Iowa at this time). Whole bunch of state employees need to be fired, if not charged themselves. The contracting company was receiving the men's SSI checks and keeping most of the money--firing squad seems appropriate. And there's plenty of non-criminal blame to go around. The processor who contracted with the Texas company who placed and housed the workers should have paid more attention--or hired local workers in the first place. The workers' families should have said something years ago, instead of showing up now looking for settlements.

But I will note that the men were productive, well-behaved members of society--they seem to have enjoyed life in the community--unlike plenty of Americans of normal intelligence who also collect a government check every month. Now they're wards of the state, told they're victims, and forced to sit around idle.

I'm sure this won't come up during Tom Harkin's (D-Lusional) hearings. Nor will Ag Sec Vilsack's incompetent Dept. of Inspections failing to appropriately regulate meat-packers...

(...I bet these men all voted for Obama, whether they knew they did or not. Atalissa is not far from Iowa City, plenty of volunteers to sign them up.)

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