Public health orders implemented during the pandemic upended the working world. Workers who found they were dispensable, or whose jobs suddenly seemed to involve more risk than reward, developed new ideas about equity.
Ballot measures addressed workers and work from a variety of angles. Reflecting a movement toward eliminating involuntary work in prisons, several states passed measures that will change their constitutions to strip away language that could provide a legal foundation for what some see as a form of “legalized slavery.”
Alabamans approved ratification of the Alabama Constitution of 2022, a recompiled version of the 1901 document. The 1901 version prohibited slavery but allowed involuntary servitude in cases where persons had been convicted of a crime.
By a significant margin, voters in Louisiana voted not to remove constitutional language that allows slavery as a form of punishment. However, the Democratic representative who first proposed it, a civil rights lawyer, urged voters to reject the proposed amendment because it still allowed forced labor to be included in a criminal sentence.
Vermonters overwhelmingly supported Proposal 2, to change their constitution to explicitly forbid indentured servitude and slavery. Most were unaware that it allowed those “bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs or the like” to serve as slaves, according to supporters of the proposal.
Eight in 10 Tennessee voters supported...
By Luminous Jannamike The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has warned Rev. Isaac Omolehin of Word Assembly Ministry to retract what it described as false and defamatory claims about the body...