Prison Labor

Bus Drivers Refuse To Help Police, Prison Labor Replaces Meatpackers And More

May 29, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Educate! Bus Driver, Meatpackers, Minneapolis, Prison Labor

With protests erupting all over Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, cops are attempting to arrest protesters in mass. However, some bus drivers in Minneapolis are refusing to use their buses to transport protestors to jail. “As a transit worker and union member, I refuse to transport my class and radical youth,” Minneapolis bus driver Adam Burch told Payday. “An injury to one is an injury to all. The police murdered George Floyd and the protest against is completely justified and should continue until their demands are met.” While it would be illegal for Burch’s union to call for a wildcat strike, his local union ATU Local 1005 did issue a statement of solidarity with the protestors. “In ATU, we have a saying “NOT ONE MORE” when it comes to driver assaults, which in some cases have led to members being murdered while doing their job,” said the union in a statement.

Federal Prison Factories Kept Running As Coronavirus Spreads

April 11, 2020 Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger, and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project. Educate! COVID-19, health, Prison Labor, Prisoner rights

As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He’d worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus was creeping into prisons by mid-March, Jones and his fellow inmates were working without masks, according to interviews with family and prisoners who knew him. He collapsed on March 19 and was taken to a hospital. About a week later, he died from COVID-19. Shortly after his death, the pandemic’s first in a federal Bureau of Prisons facility, the agency announced a nationwide 14-day “lockdown,” saying inmates would be mostly kept in their cells to decrease the spread of the virus.

Incarcerated Workers Are Bearing The Brunt Of Extreme Weather

February 3, 2019 Michael Arria, In These Times. Educate! Extreme weather, Prison Labor

On January 28, an image of Cook County Jail prisoners shoveling snow went viral after it was posted on the La Villita community Facebook page and then shared by the Chicago Community Bond Fund. The city of Chicago was preparing for an arctic blast and the prisoners were seen working in cold temperatures wearing orange jumpsuits. Thousands of people shared the image and expressed concern about the well-being of the prisoners. This scenario is yet another example of how incarcerated workers—toiling for little or no pay—are on the frontlines of extreme weather.

Noise Demos Ring In NYE Against Backdrop Of Prison Slavery

January 2, 2019 Staff, Itsgoingdown.org Resist! Prison Labor, Prisons, Protest Demonstrations, Slavery

This year in over 20 cities across the US and Canada, anarchists, abolitionists, autonomists, and other rebels took part in noise demonstrations on New Year’s Eve, as has become an ongoing tradition within the movement. Demonstrations were organized outside of a variety of facilities, jails, prisons, and detention centers, and occurred against a backdrop of not only continued struggle and action against prison slavery, migrant detention, and child separation, but also growing anger to the carceral State in general.

New Slave Labor: California Prisoners Fight Fires For Less Than $2 An Hour

November 14, 2018 By Naomi LaChance, Truthdig.com Educate! California, Exploitation, Prison Labor, Slave labor

The nearly 4,000 incarcerated workers who are trained to fight deadly fires across California often make less than $2 an hour and are not eligible to be hired as professional firefighters after they are released from prison. The work is physically strenuous and, in some cases, fatal. As forest fires ravage California, the state has become increasingly reliant on the program as a cost-saving measure. In July, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation tweeted that 2,000 incarcerated people, including 58 “youth offenders,” were working to fight fires. Bill Sessa, an information officer at the department, said that “all of the juvenile offenders [used to fight fires] have committed serious or violent felonies.” Adult incarcerated firefighters are often low-level, nonviolent offenders.

The National Prison Strike Is Over. Now Is The Time Prisoners Are Most In Danger

October 2, 2018 Heather Ann Thompson, Theconversation.com Resist! Class Struggle, Prison Labor, Prison Strike, Repression

Over the last few weeks men and women across the United States – and even as far away as Nova Scotia, Canada – have protested to demand humane treatment for the incarcerated. In 2016, when prisoners engaged in similar hunger strikes, sit-ins, and work stoppages, their actions barely registered with the national media. As someone who regularly writes about the history of prisoner protests and prison conditions today, this lack of interest was striking. This time around, though, prisoner demands to improve the conditions of confinement have captured the attention of reporters everywhere. Coverage can be found in such major newspapers as The Washington Post and The New York Times. Popular magazines such as GQ and Teen Vogue have also published pieces.

Keeping The Spirit Of The Prison Labor Strike Alive

October 2, 2018 James Kilgore, Truthout.org Strategize! Class Struggle, Prison Labor, Prison Strike

This year’s Prison Labor Strike was one of the most amazing mobilizations of liberatory politics in the past decade. It was the latest iteration in the most recent generation of prison rebellions, which has included labor strikes in Georgia prisons in 2010, the three Pelican Bay Hunger Strikes in California 2011-2013, and the direct predecessor of the latest action: the strike against prison slavery in 2016. The authoritarian nature of prison bureaucracies prevents us from compiling a precise chronicle of what takes place behind the walls. However, according to the lead organization in the strike, the network of prisoners known as Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, actions occurred in 16 states and federal prisons. Plus, over 200 people went on strike in the Northwest Immigration Detention Center.

Prison Labor Is Slave Labor, And We Should Get Rid Of It

September 17, 2018 By Fizz Perkal, Otherwords.org Educate! Class Struggle, New Economy, Prison Labor, Slave labor

Incarcerated workers — who often make less than $1 an hour producing profits for big companies — are on strike across the country. As wildfires rage across California, some of the people risking their lives to fight them are paid only a few dollars a day. They’re part of a 2.3 million-strong underclass of American employees making sweatshop wages: incarcerated workers. Slave wages are just one of the many reasons why incarcerated people around the U.S. on strike. The strike was organized in response to deadly violence at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina earlier this year, a result of the prison’s abysmal living conditions. Organizers have a list of 10 demands, which include the need for prompt improvement of prison conditions and policies. They also call for the “immediate end to prison slavery,” which is legal thanks to a constitutional loophole.

Prisoner Strike Exposes An Age Old American Reliance On Forced Labor

September 4, 2018 By Calvin Schermerhorn, Theconversation.com Resist! Exploitation, Labor, Prison Labor, Prison Strike, Prisons

Prisoners in 17 states and several Canadian provinces are on strike in protest of prison labor conditions. Their demonstrations are compelling Americans to understand that some everyday foods are produced behind bars, for cents on the hour, in a system many call “modern slavery.” Prisoners in the U.S. harvest and process eggs, orange juice, ground beef and fish. They also staff call centers, fight wildfires and make sugar. For this work, they receive, on average, 86 cents a day, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group. Some formerly incarcerated people disagree with the comparison of prison work to slavery, saying that prison jobs teach real skills that may reduce recidivism. But the prisoners’ strike, underway since Aug. 21, shines a light on a troubling American habit of consuming, often thoughtlessly, the products of forced labor.

A Labor Day Call To Action

August 31, 2018 Staff, Incarceratedworkers.org Organize! Class Struggle, Prison Labor, Prison Strike, Prisons

This is a call to establish encampments and coordinate direct actions surrounding the Labor Day weekend at the site of prison labor camps. Inspired by the recent wave of #AbolishICE organizing, prison abolitionists and labor activists have joined forces to call for an escalation of the movement to defend public service unions, stop prison slave labor, and end mass incarceration. As prisoners launch what is anticipated to be the largest national prison strike in U.S. history, between August 21- September 9, we on the outside must also ask ourselves, what are we willing to do and how much are we willing to risk to demonstrate our solidarity to fellow workers? Earlier this year, the Supreme Court announced one of the most devastating blows to union membership in decades.

Slavery Never Ended: Call For National Prison Strike #August21

July 24, 2018 Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee Resist! Prison Labor, Prison Strike

This call is for a two-week national strike beginning on Aug. 21, the anniversary of George Jackson’s assassination, and extending until Sept. 9, the anniversary of the Attica Prison Rebellion in 1971. The call has been taken up inside from coast to coast, and across at least 17 different states. The author of this call, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, is a national collective of incarcerated people who fight for human rights by providing other incarcerated people with access to legal education, resources and assistance.

A New School To Prison Pipeline That Might Surprise You

December 6, 2017 Staff, educationalchemy.com Educate! Labor, Mass Incarceration, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labor

By Staff of Educational Alchemy - Maryland Correctional Enterprises (MCE) is the state’s own prison labor company. A semi-autonomous subdivision of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), MCE commands a workforce of thousands of prisoners, paid just a few dollars per day. MCE workers make far less than minimum wage, earning between $1.50 and $5.10 for an entire day’s work. Most of us are familiar by now with the concept of a school-to-prison pipeline, but here it is, a prison-for-school pipeline, or better yet, prison-for-profit (all hail 21st century slavery alive and well) in the name of “education reform.” It might be a “great day” for Ed St John and U of M, but I doubt its a great day for the forced laborers who did the work. The new center will “transform teaching and learning” but it will not transform systemic oppression or racism. In fact, it benefits from the fruits of oppressive labor. This is not the only time that U of M, or other institutions of higher learning have used prison labor. That is a deep seated problem in itself that warrants our attention. As one news article states, “”Maryland is just a symptom … of how the prison industrial complex affects African-Americans and poor people of color nationwide.”

Stop Using Inmates As Slaves

October 23, 2017 Annie McGrew and Angela Hanks, www.talkpoverty.org Resist! Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labor, Slavery

By Annie McGrew and Angela Hanks for Talk Poverty - Last week, a Louisiana sheriff gave a press conference railing against a new prisoner release program because it cost him free labor from “some good [inmates] that we use every day to wash cars, to change oil in the cars, to cook in the kitchen.” Two days later, news broke that up to 40 percent of the firefighters battling California’s outbreak of forest fires are prison inmates working for $2 an hour. Practices like these are disturbingly common: Military gear, ground meat, Starbucks holiday products, and McDonald’s uniforms have all been made (or are still made) with low-wage prison labor. Inmates are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that workers are paid at least the federal minimum wage. That makes it completely legal for states to exploit inmates for free or cheap labor. More than half of the 1.5 million people in state and federal prisons work while incarcerated, and the vast majority only make a few cents per hour. Most inmates work in their own prison facilities, in jobs such as maintenance or food service. These jobs pay an average of just 86 cents an hour, and are primarily designed to keep the prison running at a low cost. Others may be employed in so-called “correctional industries,” where inmates work for the Department of Corrections to produce goods that are sold to government entities and nonprofit organizations.

Slave Labor Widespread At ICE Detention Centers, Lawyers Say

September 12, 2017 Mia Steinle, www.pogo.org Educate! Detention Centers, Exploitation, Immigration, Labor, Prison Labor, Undocumented

By Mia Steinle for POGO - There are nearly 200 federal detention centers across the country. Here, people suspected of violating U.S. immigration laws wait for court hearings to find out if they’ll stay in the United States or be deported. While they wait, many detainees work as part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “voluntary work program.” They clean, they cook, they do laundry, and they garden—some advocates say they keep the facilities running. For their labor, the detainees are supposed to be paid at least $1 per day, or just under $0.13 per hour for an 8-hour work day. This arrangement has the blessings of both ICE and Congress, the latter of which set the rate over a half a century ago and hasn’t changed it since. However, a growing body of legal experts says paying detainees $1 per day not only violates state minimum wage laws, but also violates the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in all instances except as punishment for people convicted of crimes. Experts argue that, because the majority of detainees have not been convicted of crimes, they should be fairly compensated for their labor. From California to Colorado to Massachusetts, detainees have recently taken legal action against the for-profit companies and local governments that operate the majority of ICE detention centers.

Abolitionists From Around The World Gather To End Prisons

September 3, 2017 Jean Trounstine, www.truth-out.org Create! Human Rights, Prison, Prison abolition, Prison Labor

By Jean Trounstine for Truthout. In July 2017 more than 200 people from across the globe met for four days in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was once home to abolitionist Frederick Douglass and a major stop on the Underground Railroad. Meeting intentionally in a place with such historical significance to the abolition movement, conferees came together to learn more about the relationship between the carceral state and struggles against colonialism and slavery. Since 2000, "The increased use of incarceration accounted for nearly zero percent of the overall reduction in crime," according to a recent report by the Vera Institute, entitled "The Prison Paradox: More Incarceration Will Not Make Us Safer." The report also underscores the structural racism in which incarceration is grounded, adding, "Incarceration will increase crime in states and communities with already high incarceration rates." Recognizing that prison does not reduce violence, many organizations and abolitionists advocate community accountability practices as an alternative to the punishment system, utilizing networks of friends, families, church groups, neighborhoods or workplace associates to provide safety to the community and ways of healing harm.

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