Slave labor means big bucks for U.S. corporations

  Michael Schwartz Schwartz is a
fifth-year sociology student who can be reached at [email protected].

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It seemed like a normal factory closing. U.S. Technologies sold
its electronics plant in Austin, Texas, leaving its 150 workers
unemployed. Everyone figured they were moving the plant to Mexico,
where they would employ workers at half the cost. But six weeks
later, the electronics plant reopened in Austin in a nearby
prison.

At the same time, the United States blasts China for the the use
of prison slave labor, engaging in the same practice itself. Prison
labor is a pot of gold. No strikes, union organizing, health
benefits, unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation to
pay. As if exploiting the labor of prison inmates was not bad
enough, it is legal in the United States to use slave labor. The
13th Amendment of the Constitution states that “neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within
the United States.”

There are approximately 2 million people behind bars in the
United States ““ more than three times the number of prisoners
in 1980. The United States now imprisons more people than any other
country in the world. In fact, in the last 20 years California has
constructed 21 new prisons while in the same amount of time, it has
built only one new university. That statistic is even more
astounding when we think about the fact that it took California
almost 150 years to build its first 12 prisons. Another five new
prisons are under construction and plans are in the works to build
another 10.

The question that needs to be answered is why. Why are prisons
such a booming business? The answer lies in the prison industrial
complex. At the same time that prisons clear the streets of those
you feel are a “threat” to society, prisons also offer
jobs in construction, guarding, administration, health, education
and food service.

Prisons in impoverished areas often end up with inmates from the
local area who had previously worked in the community. Often they
were laid off from a factory job that moved overseas and they
turned to alcohol or drugs, which ultimately landed them in prison.
Others are luckier and get a job in the prison. One of the
fastest-growing sectors of the prison industrial complex is private
corrections companies. Private prisons also have an incentive to
gain as many prisoners as possible and to keep them there as long
as possible.

Many corporations, whose products we consume on a daily basis,
have learned that prison labor can be as profitable as using
sweatshop labor in developing nations. You might have had a
first-hand experience with a prison laborer if you have ever booked
a flight on Trans World Airlines since many of the workers making
the phone reservations are prisoners. Other companies that use
prison labor are Chevron, IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments,
Honeywell, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret and Boeing. Federal
prisons operate under the trade name Unicor and use their prisoners
to make everything from lawn furniture to congressional desks.
Their Web site proudly displays “where the government shops
first.”

Federal safety and health standards do not protect prison labor,
nor do the National Labor Relations Board policies. The
corporations do not even have to pay minimum wage. In California,
inmates who work for the Prison Industrial Authority earn wages
between 30 and 95 cents per hour before required deductions for
restitutions and fines.

State Corrections agencies are even advertising their prisoners
to corporations by asking these questions: “Are you
experiencing high employee turnover? Worried about the cost of
employee benefits? Getting hit by overseas competition? Having
trouble motivating your work force? Thinking about expansion space?
Then the Washington State Department of Corrections Private Sector
Partnerships is for you.”

  Illustration by GRACE HUANG/Daily Bruin Prisons are being
filled largely with the poor, the mentally ill, people of color,
drug addicts and many combinations of these characteristics. They
are not reserved for violent people who are extremely dangerous to
society.

In fact, of the nearly 2 million prisoners, about 150,000 are
armed robbers, 125,000 are murderers and 100,000 are sex offenders.
Prisons are certainly not filled with corporate criminals who make
up only one percent of our nation’s prisons.

In California, then-Gov. Pete Wilson signed the “three
strikes and you’re out” law in 1994. The law states
that if an offender has two or more previous serious or violent
felony convictions, the mandatory sentence for any new felony
conviction is 25 years to life. Though people thought the
three-strikes law was intended to protect society from dangerous
career criminals, the actual enactment of the law has been
dramatically different.

Kendall Cooke was convicted under the three-strikes law for
stealing one can of beer with two previous convictions of theft.
Clarence Malbrough was sentenced to 25 years to life for stealing
batteries, a crime that would usually send someone to jail for
about 30 days. Eddie Jordan stole a shirt from a JC Penney store,
Juan Murro attempted to steal wooden pallets from a parking lot and
Michael Garcia stole a package of steaks from a grocery store. All
of these people are facing life in prison for petty theft. They are
fueling the prison industry. They are not the exception,
either.

Eighty-five percent of those sentenced under the law in
California faced prison for a nonviolent offense. Two years after
the law went into effect, there were twice as many people
imprisoned under the three-strikes law for possession of marijuana
as for murder, rape and kidnapping combined. Over 80 percent of
those sentenced under the three-strikes law are African American
and Latino.

In the 1980s, Congress established several different mandatory
minimum sentences. These laws require offenders of certain crimes
to receive fixed sentences without parole. Mandatory sentences,
especially for drugs, are largely responsible for the
ever-increasing number of people behind bars in the United States.
In May of 1998, drug defendants made up 60 percent of the federal
prison population, up from 25 percent in 1980. The disproportionate
number of African Americans being sent to prison for drug use,
however, is largely due to racism in the actual mandatory minimum
laws themselves.

Though crack and powdered cocaine are virtually the same drug
(crack is powder cocaine mixed with baking soda) possession of five
grams of crack gets you a mandatory five years in jail, while it
takes 500 grams of powdered cocaine to get this same sentence. The
U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that in 1995, whites accounted
for 52 percent of all crack users and African Americans, 38
percent. But just 4.1 percent of those sentenced for crack offenses
are white, while 88 percent are African American. Seventy percent
of our nation’s prisons are made up of African Americans. You
now know that they are there through a variety of unjust racist
laws.

Corporations are happily using these people for slave labor,
which is perfectly legal under the constitution. Almost 2 million
human beings are now locked up in our nation’s prisons. The
vast majority is not there because they are murderers, rapists or
other violent people. They are there because prisons are a business
in this country, whether we’re talking about private prisons
or private companies using prison labor. The next time you think of
prison slave labor you don’t have to think of China, think of
the United States. And go take a look at the 13th Amendment.