New Orleans        Count on the New York Times knowing its audience when it comes to trying to poke fun at unions.  The headline almost said it all, “These Goats Aren’t Heroes to a Sidelined Union Crew.”  The piece got a little better if you read it to the end, but most of their readers would just snicker and laugh at the lead when the “crew” was identified by name, Kevin, Wilson, and Marti, who “did not complain about the hours…ate lunch on site and were endlessly enthusiastic.”  The union filed a grievance against the use of the goats….hardy, hardy, har, guffaws all around.

The union, an AFSCME local with a contract with the Columbus (Ohio) Water & Power Department, had members working the 290 acres south of the city.  The issue was subcontracting.  The collective agreement required notifying the union of “its intent to subcontract the work, which…violates the collective bargaining agreement.”  The union filed a proper grievance, as they should have done.  Forty goats worked the property in some areas with lots of poison hemlock for 10 days and were paid in trade, while their owner was paid $2900.  The workers now will have to go finish the job, because the goats at best only did the first, rough cut, as much as they could digest.  The point of the grievance is that the union should have been notified and had the opportunity to discuss and negotiate.  They might have approved the goats, but they didn’t have the chance.  Now they have no choice, but to clean up after them.

Nothing funny about any of that, especially when it comes to no pay for the “workers” who do the hard work.  It opens the door to abuse by agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its contractors.  ICE is now holding 60,000 in detention.  They made public relaxed standards for these detentions.  These rules allow contractors to use the detainees for so-called “voluntary work” and pay them only $1 per hour.  This is the same ICE that took down half of the $70 billion in the recent immigration enforcement bill signed by Trump and is dripping with money.  This is the same ICE that bought a billion dollars’ worth of warehouses and other properties for detention facilities and is now trying to off load $700 million worth of them to almost any takers, public or private.  These are the same detention facilities where reports have been relentless about inadequate medical care, food and generally terrible conditions.  God knows what detainees will be asked to do for a dollar an hour to shape up these hell holes.

There’s no union there, which is why we read about hunger strikes and protests in detention centers all over the country.  Too often the whole point of subcontracting is avoiding accountability, escaping liability, and cutting workers’ pay to the bone.

Nothing funny about that either.