Indentured Servitude

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS

Indentured Servitude (India)

 

It’s a fine line between slavery

And indentured servitude

For the sugar workers of India

Servitude may be worse

Child labor is commonplace

Arranged marriage and hysterectomy

Keeps the workers in the fields

Where they labor endless hours

Without drink or a moment’s rest

To pay back loans they can never repay

 

The plantation owners get away with it

The same way American corporations do

They use contractors to hire workers

To transport them across the land

To build their debt of servitude

If they are forced to make account

They dissolve and take a new name

The system evolved over decades

To keep the cost of labor down

 

Every doctor or dentist visit

Every wedding or sick day

Goes on the worker’s bill

The long trip from home

The cost of a decent meal

It all goes on the bill

 

It is no better than slavery

It is in substance no different

 

This is how modern corporations

Keep the institution of slavery alive

This is how Coke and Pepsi

Deliver beverages to your market

And maximize profits to shareholders