[AKSucks]

It's not like I have a solution, but with a sufficiently large enough Big Employer Company in a town/city, it all but guarantees a plaintiff against won't get a fair trial when damn near everyone in town or the city is 2 or less degrees of separation from a job at that company.

In Boston the city employee to resident ratio was one of the lowest in the nation and while Thomas "Chuckles" Menino cultured an air of being a friendly grandpa patriarch who couldn't keep track of which team name corresponded to which sport...reality was that city workers were an ersatz campaign worker army, infamous for being fiercely loyal, and demanding loyalty from family and neighbors. "Are you voting for Not Menino? Because if you do, I'm gonna lose my job, Bill." There were newspaper stories about families nearly getting into fistfights over this stuff.

Menino stepped down, Marty Walsh stepped up (and promptly got involved in some scandals involving his staff pushing for union work on construction sites.) He's been appointed federal secretary of labor, so the deputy mayor suddenly was in charge. This current election cycle seems heavily focused on identity politics, social justice, etc.

It's a subject some politicians are more than happy to discuss because it sidesteps how massively wasteful and incompetent the city workforce is; nothing gets done unless you're on good terms with the "neighborhood liaison" or know someone. It's a miracle they manage to even keep their office chair seats warm. When nearby Somerville (which is basically the municipal version of the Italian mob) is more functional, that's not a good look...