Political Crossfire Forums

The Place that I worked at here in Arkansas, was crowded, and greasy, and loaded with rust from abandoned, outdated industrial equipment that it was my job to disassemble and to catalog the parts.
The people that I worked around have poor social skills, and disorders like down syndrome.

Just for the record, people with down syndrome have compromised immune systems because it is not just mental retardation but a physical abnormality.. so they're constantly vulnerable and bringing in bacteria and viruses.
Just to add to the pre existing condition of the facility being nasty in and of itself.
People have even gotten so sick, that they had acute heart problems while performing their duties, and had to go to the hospital immediately.

So its a very tough, tough environment to work in.

Sounds like you guys should form a union. And as you describe this place, it seems like it was full of both safety hazards and dangerous contaminants. Putting people with Downs Syndrome - as you said, they have both severe mental impairment and significantly weakened immune systems - to work in such an environment is reprehensible. They are not intellectually capable of even comprehending the danger this environment poses to them, yet someone is sending them in to work there day in and day out.

How the f**k is this allowed? Oh, right, it's the South.

[quote="Philly"]Sounds like you guys should form a union.[/quote]

At a sheltered workshop the workers are not legally employees, and they're not protected under the minimum wage laws.
And the vast majority of the people there are not capable of organizing.

Organizing only requires one or two capable leaders. Everyone else just has to hold a sign and stand where the leader tells you to stand. I assure you that many of the rank-and-file union crusaders who fought for better conditions in the 20th century would be considered at or near mental retardation level if they were walking around today. Part of why the labor movement was so successful back then was because of how unintelligent and uneducated most of the foot soldiers were. They would strike when the union boss told them to strike and went back to work when the union boss said strike's over. They voted for whoever the union said to support, and showed up with crowbars and baseball bats when they were instructed to do so.

Then unions fell apart when it became common for blue collar union workers to be literate and for their kids to go to college.

Who gives a f**k.

Its just the lowering of standards in this country as we strive to be world class. Also, our new post NAFTA flea market economy.