Wednesday night on “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert dedicated this nightly “The Word” segment to the phrase “Free Lunch” and to discussing the corrosive influence of labor unions on the American way of life.

Unions are killing America’s small towns, said Colbert, “Their demands for a livable wage and accessible fire exits have gutted our economy.”

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Fortunately, he said, public employee unions in Wisconsin have been stripped of their right to bargain collectively, voters in San Diego and San Jose elected to cut public worker pension plans and in Indiana, it was made illegal for unions to solicit dues from members.

However, one public sector union just won an important battle. School cafeteria workers in Pennsylvania have won the right to eat leftover food, even if the food has expired.

“These unionized lunch-lady thugs,” said Colbert, “now have the right to free expired cafeteria food, and given the quality of cafeteria food, ‘expired’ is an improvement.”

The right of these workers “to feed on unwanted table scraps” is a huge victory for the union, he continued, but hopefully other public sector unions won’t follow their example. What if firefighters got to pick through the charred remains of homes they just put out? Or what if union cops who can’t pay their mortgages demand to be allowed to sleep in empty jail cells? Nurses, actually, could be the real winners here. They could help themselves to expired medicine.

“Think how strong the penicillin will be after it’s molded a second time!” he enthused.

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All joking aside, though, this trend is insidious, and it must be stopped.

Watch the video, embedded via Comedy Central, below: