Posted on 04/21/2014 8:34:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Melvin Ray
Inmates at an Alabama prison plan to stage a work stoppage this weekend and hope to spur an escalating strike wave, a leader of the effort told Salon in a Thursday phone call from his jail cell.
“We decided that the only weapon or strategy … that we have is our labor, because that’s the only reason that we’re here,” said Melvin Ray, an inmate at the St. Clair correctional facility and founder of the prison-based group Free Alabama Movement. “They’re incarcerating people for the free labor.” Spokespeople for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and his Department of Corrections did not respond to midday inquiries Thursday. Jobs done by inmates include kitchen and laundry work, chemical and license plate production, and furniture-making. In 2011, Alabama’s Department of Agriculture reportedly discussed using inmates to replace immigrants for agricultural work; in 2012, the state Senate passed a bill to let private businesses employ prison labor.
Inmates at St. Clair and two other prisons, Holman and Elmore, previously refused to work for several days in January. A Department of Corrections spokesperson told the Associated Press at the time that those protests were peaceful, and told AL.com that some of the inmates’ demands were outside the authority of the department to address. The state told the AP that a handful of inmates refused work, and others were prevented from working by safety or weather issues. In contrast, Ray told Salon the January effort drew the participation of all of St. Clair’s roughly 1,300 inmates and nearly all of Holman’s roughly 1,100. He predicted this weekend’s work stoppage would spread further and grow larger than that one, but also accused prison officials of hampering F.A.M.’s organizing by wielding threats and sending him and other leaders to solitary confinement. “It’s a hellhole,”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Seriously?! It’s prison ... not an all inclusive vacation hotspot!
Don’t like the time? don’t do the crime.
That’s essentially what happens but wage garnishment from the courts for things like child support or taxes would probably overrule the state getting their cut.
Remove all the weight lifting equipment. gone
The local economy would do even better if they hired the citizens to do the work instead of using the convict labor at a fraction of the cost. Convict labor puts the honest citizen out of a job.
The only labor prisoners should be doing is breaking rocks, digging ditches, and cleaning public roads, not fattening the pockets of Insider Corporations at tax payer expense.
I like it too. I would be in favor of using prisoners in areas where they could become skilled, and where the company would promise to retain them as employees upon release.
They ones who work would get better food, and access to entertainment. You don't want to work? Get used to baloney sandwiches and oatmeal.
I don’t have a problem with that
Right there is the flaw in your reasoning. You assume the inmate can do as good a job, and as fast a job, as a skilled and experienced woodworker. If an unskilled idiot could do the same job as the $27/hr woodworker, you would save even more money by putting the factory in a right-to-work state, and hiring minimum wage labor.
The value of prison labor, is that the employer can invest time in some of the prisoners to get them skilled, which will give them a trade once they get out of prison.
I have NEVER heard of a case of someone ‘screaming at night in the cots’.....Your hyperbole is too much. You seem to avoid the fact that FELONS are in PRISON for doing bad things. Taking my property, threatening me with a weapon, killing people are not behaviors I want to encourage in any form.
You of course don’t mention the fact that prisoners can get their education on my dime if they so desire. They get medical care that I pay for. They eat on my dime. The fact that tax payers foot the bill to feed, house,cloth, and care fore these miscreants seems to not be part of your thought process. They should not be given prevailing wages or anything like it unless you want them to pay for their entire stay at full cost.
And it is not worth warm spit but nice try
“The Global Research website was established on the 9th of September 2001, two days before the tragic events of September 11. Barely a few days later, Global Research had become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington’s “war on terrorism”.”
Just another NGO with a view point. I have heard the commies and libs for YEARS tell me how awful the US prison system is. What is TRUE slavery is spending your children’s and grandchildren’s wealth.
There is not one specific business named in the so called article. There is lots of fluff and bluster.
And I bet you and I agree that this was a good use of the their labor
Reading that put to mind the orc ditty from the Rankin-Bass version of Return of the King.
I’d sing it to them sarcastically too.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VoAfb3f04mo
I ran medical clinics in prisons for almost twenty years.
Prison is a horrible place, and the inmates live a brutal existence - not, it's true, from the authorities, but from each other.
Prison in its current form should be abolished. There are many more effective punishments.
Such as....
Sounds like part of one of them conspiratorial theories but that's one reason for the FWIW.
Another reason was it provides the names of companies who are alleged to use prison labor if you wanted to check them out.
IBM, Boeing, Dell, Compaq, Microsoft, Revlon, Intel and Motorola are listed on the graphic as among some of the companies that are alleged to have operations inside state prisons.
I know in California some of those companies do TRAINING for inmates. They teach them a set of skills that they might use if and when they ever get out.
I hardly consider that to be USING slave labor.
I guess my biggest gripe is that when the lefties want to damage the US they don’t care what the facts are they just spew propaganda
“Such as?”
1) Hanging
2) Lashes
3) Indentures for restitution.
There is a wealth of evidence that, far from being an effective punishment, prison makes most inmates worse.
A prison is a government institution. Like all government institutions, it is subject to fraud and abuse. While I’m all in favor of putting prisoners to work as part of their punishment and rehabilitation, we do need to be careful to make sure that the system isn’t being used to exploit people beyond which is fair or just.
At the same time, of course convicts who don’t want the work are going to complain about it. And crying “wolf” too often leads to people not treating the real thing seriously.
It’s a tough issue - there needs to be oversight, but not to the point where the process can be used to subvert the legitimate goals.
Another possible compromise might be to only use convict labor for public-works projects, to eliminate the profit motive entirely and really focus on the whole “debt to society” angle.
Well, yes. That's what the phrase "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" means.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.