From: Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com>
Subject: Prison Jobs
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 08:13:08 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>
{From PEOPLE'S WEEKLY WORLD, December 26, 1992}
THOUSANDS OF JOBS LOST TO PRISON INDUSTRY CONTRACTS
 
In recent years thousands of workers have lost good paying jobs 
that have been contracted to inmates in state penitentiaries who 
earn about $2.00 a day.
 
Inmates in state prisons across the country are sitting at 
computer terminals performing telemarketing and data entry work 
in additon to manual labor that takes jobs from union members in 
a variety of industries: autoparts and other manufacturing, 
carpentry, warehousing, desktop publishing, typesetting, 
printing, gtourism, travel and telecommunications. 
 
Twenty states employ prisoners in interstate commerce, according 
to AFL-CIOI Research Economist John Zalusky, who noted that the 
AFL-CIO Executive Council supports skills-training programs 
designed to have a rehabilitation effect and reduce recidivism.
 
Prison industries that employ inmates are supposed to pay the 
prevailing wage for the locality and the work done is to have no 
impact on the community. "They've supposed to discuss it with the 
local labor movement," he said, adding that seldom are any of the 
above conditions met.
 
As an example Zalusky cited a California youth facility where 
inmates made flight reservations for Trans World Airlines. They 
were paid $5.50 an hour for work that pays $18.75 outside, he 
said. [In Raleigh, a right to work state, NC, American Airlines 
paid $6.00 and $6.50 for reservationists, whom they hired from 
the community--HR] 
 
TWA isn't the only one. AT&T uses one or another agency firm to 
subcontract telemarketing work to at least three state prison 
systems.
 
For the last two years in one such arrangement, the Arkansas 
Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway, Colo. contracted to have 
50 inmates market AT&T products by telephone.
 
Allegations that AT&T has been using prison labor in Colorado 
surfaced when a former prison guard who has a lawsuit against the 
state showed her lawyer a list of telemarketing questions she had 
taken from an inmate. The attorney, Michael McDivitt, in turn, 
took his information to the local media.
 
"The prison system had a conatract with a company called 
Unibase." McDivitt said, "Unibase contrcted with AT&T."
 
Liz McDonough, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of 
Corrections, confirmed the facility's arrangement with Unibase. 
Inmates were paid $2 per day - a standard prison wage. The 
company paid an additional $1,000 per month to the Department of 
Corrections to operate within the prison.
 
Responding to Irwine's inquiry, AT&T Labor Relations Vice 
President Charles Brumfield attemapted to explain the operation 
as "part of an effort to help reduce the tax gurden upon 
Colorado's taxpayers."
 
Unibase continues to conducgt a thriving business. The company 
headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, employs about 450 people, 
and from Oct. 1, 1990 to Sept. 30, 1991 generated $5,120,033 in 
sales.
 
Fred Nichols, administrator of the program for the Oregon 
Department of Corrections, pointed out how widespread was AT&T's 
telemarketing through the prisons.
 
On Octo. 28 he confirmed that through Unibase the Oregon State 
Penitentiary - a maximum security prison - continued to perform 
telemarketing for AT&T and had done so for over a year.
 
"It was a huge operation," he said, "We had 70 inmates working on 
it, Arizona had 50, New Mexico had some and maybe Ohio."
 
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive