On Wednesday, dozens of garbage workers, employed by the temp service People Ready, went on strike, demanding proper safety equipment.

The workers, who make only $10.25 an hour are also demanding hazard pay and paid sick leave.

“$10.25 to pick up trash – come on now. It’s contaminated now with coronavirus,” strike leader Gregory Woods told Payday Report this week.

After striking, the workers were fired en-masse earlier this week

However, many workers had hoped that the city would find a resolution to hire the back. Now, the city has found new workers to replace the striking workers, prison labor from nearby Livingston Parish.

“Metro Services Group has long been an advocate of helping persons who had been incarcerated return to society in a meaningful and productive way,” said the city’s sanitation services in a statement. “Metro makes no apologies for this policy as a core element of our commitment to being good corporate citizens.

Under state rules, prison inmates, employed by Metro Services, will be paid only 13% of what garbage workers, who only make $10.25-an-hour, are being paid.

“I really don’t like it,” says Woods. “They are really trying to use those dudes to do our job, and they paying them way less than they were paying us.”

“They are trying to show the world that people will still do our job without giving us the proper protective equipment,” says Woods. “All of it is a hustle for them, a scam for them. They saving money that’s all they are doing – that’s all it is”.

Pluto left this comment in Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's brilliant essay that is one of the best on how voting no longer changes policies for the betterment of the We the People. If you haven't read it yet you are in for a treat. I tweeted and posted it on many Reddit threads. I snagged Thumb's attention and he is going to cross post it on Way of the Bern Yay cuz it needs as many eyes on it as possible so people can see where we have been heading for far too long while we were caught up in Lesser Evil Voting which just kept giving us a steady diet of Evil.

The oligarchs have always been with us. The political philosophy of elite rule has held steady from the nation's genocidal birth. There was never a Party of the Left in the US. The nation had no history, it was a slave colony, the Oligarchs were designing it.

The website PayDay Report has been covering the numerous strikes across the country.