A SCENE WE’D LIKE TO SEE REPEATED

Friday, January 2, 2009

(PAI)A SCENE WE’D LIKE TO SEE REPEATED
    There was a scene a month ago in Portland, Ore., we’d like to see repeated around the country: A labor foe -- and a lawbreaker -- taking a “perp walk” and being marched off to jail in handcuffs.
    The villain in this case was multimillionaire radical Right Winger Bill Sizemore, notable for his anti-worker ballot initiatives, all of which have failed over the last decade, and the illegal methods he uses to get them before voters. Sizemore breaks numerous election laws along the way and skims the money for his campaigns for himself, to boot.
    Sizemore has set up sham organizations, illegally paid for fake signatures and perpetrated numerous other frauds, all part of his vitriolic anti-worker hatred. Well, he went too far several times and Oregon’s two teachers’ unions, which with the rest of labor battled Sizemore’s brainstorms, won judgments against him, which he’s evaded.
    A Multnomah County (Portland) judge had finally had it with Sizemore’s stalling and sentenced him to jail for contempt. He spent overnight in the slammer. Though Sizemore was sprung after only a day, he now faces more than $3 million in penalties.
    We can think of a few other corporate criminals -- and we’re sure you can, too -- who could do with cooling their heels in jail, all of them for far more than one night:
* Every single union-buster in the country. Let’s start with the alleged “law firm” of Jackson Lewis. All union busters aid and abet taking money out of people’s pockets and bread out of people’s mouths. Under conspiracy laws, that is (or should be) illegal.
    * Wal-Mart. The monster retailer treats its workers like indentured servants. On
its face, that condition violates the U.S. Constitution. Can’t we find a law to try them under and throw the Wal-Mart honchos in jail for that? And throw away the keys? And is there any way to jail a corporation? How about ordering it dismantled?
    * The executives of the Beverly nursing home chain. Evidence of Beverly’s labor law-breaking takes up yards of shelving at the National Labor Relations Board -- and it extends all the way up to physical threats to kill or injure union supporters.
    * The Radical Right, whose titans want to turn the U.S. into a feudal fiefdom ruled by a small, rich elite (them) while the rest of the country becomes serfs with no rights.   The law they break with that conspiracy is, again, the Constitution. The 13th amendment does ban slavery and involuntary servitude, after all.
    Can we jail Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., Radical Right sachem Grover Norquist -- who hosts conspirators’ meetings -- and, of course, George W. Bush, among others?
    There are more, many more, but you get the idea. Draw up your own list of those who should take the “perp walk,” and then seek some way to get them to join Sizemore in the slammer. And not just for a day. They inflicted eight years on us.
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