The Other Undocumented Workforce

Volunteer labor and its effects and a short history of Maine legislation during the LePage administration

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

I am becoming increasingly aware of how the working classes are regarded by the State and its private partners, consisting of all institutions where wealth is concentrated, including universities. non-profits. and large private corporations, including AirBnB, which, in a recent article published in the Boothbay Register, is reported to be telling the government how it will report the taxes it collects and not the other way around, due to a contractual agreement between AirBnB and state governments.

There is a commonly shared idea that what is called “the workforce” in some places and “manpower” in others, can be paid a bare minimum while generosity is extended to leadership who often shares in institutional profits, or in the case of the University of Maine, owns all the patents. Volunteer labor is an exacerbating factor.

Volunteer labor has viable reasons for being but seeds the attitude among the holders of concentrated wealth that workers don’t need t…