The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Monday, October 25, 2004

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The Supreme Freedom Tribunal in the United States has upheld a ruling that corporations can sue their workers for "actual corporate harm" if the workers' actions can be established as causing detriment to the corporation's performance on the free market.

Down Home Blues Inc., the garment manufacturer which makes 25% of America's blue jeans, sued 3,000 female workers from its Unionberg, Alabama factory when they came out on strike two years ago claiming higher wages and shorter working hours. Since the company's profits would have been dented by giving any concessions, DHB's obligation to its shareholders meant it had no alternative but to close the factory and sack the strikers.

The corporation then sued the strikers for the losses incurred by shareholders as a result of the closure. "The factory's remaining productive life, if the strike had not taken place, could have been as much as forty years," said DHB spokesperson Buford H McGonnigle. "That's forty years of profits our shareholders have lost because of this one irresponsible action, and I think our shareholders deserve some recompense for that."

In addition to the financial damages, the Supreme Freedom Tribunal has now ruled that corporate bodies can legally be treated as human bodies in such cases, which means that any or all of the strikers could now be eligible for prison sentences as long as twenty years for causing "actual corporate harm". In future cases, if worker action results in the closure of a company, charges of corporate manslaughter or corporate murder could mean that the culprits might suffer the death penalty.

Mr McGonnigle said yesterday, "It will help the cause of freedom and business efficiency enormously if some of these malcontents get sent to jail where they can make themselves useful repairing some of the damage they've done this company." Down Home Blues has contracts with correction facility operating company Industrial Confinement and Chastisement to manufacture uniforms for convicts. The uniforms, like the blue jeans which go on sale in the outside world, are often hand-made by convicts as part of their rehabilitation during their stay with ICC.

"The Tribunal has made a very sensible ruling," said Mr McGonnigle.

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