Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program for May 28, 1999

Intro: Play Howard Zinn 28 seconds. Track 11 MAJ CD

Body:

Howard Zinn was recorded for the Mumia Abu Jamal All Things 
Censored CD. He is exactly right. Slavery was never abolished and 
it is alive and well today in Amerikan prisons.

Prisoners have always done the bulk of the work of running the 
prisons as the wage-slaves of the government. Now the corporations 
are getting in on the act. And for those corporations behind the 
learning curve, we have the Wisconsin Department of Corrections 
trying to bring them up to speed with this ominous advertisement 
"Can't find workers? A willing work force awaits."

The rapid expansion of prisoner labor is not an accident but a 
plan concocted at the top of the Amerikan government. Listen to 
what Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger had to say on the 
subject back in 1981:

QUOTE What I propose is, that as we embark on this massive prison 
construction program, we try a new approach -- convert our 
"warehouses" into factories with fences around them. To do that we 
must change our thinking and change the reactionary statutes that 
stand in the way. I believe the American people are ready to do 
that. ENDQUOTE

Since 1979, with the federal creation of Prison Industry 
Enhancement (PIE) regulations, corporations have been allowed into 
the prisons to exploit prisoner slave labor. These regulations, 
which include paying prisoners the prevailing wage must be met, 
before the products of prisoner labor can be sent across state 
lines. 

There is considerable effort underfoot to weaken these 
regulations, thereby making it possible for corporations to more 
easily exploit prisoner labor to make their products. 

Companies like Microsoft have used prisoners to package their 
products such as Microsoft Office.(1) Eddie Bauer makes jeans in a 
Tennessee prison, and that Honda makes car parts in an Ohio 
prison. All of these get to credit their labor as "made in the 
U$A."(2)

State-owned industries get in on the act too. While the U.$. 
criticizes Chinese prison slave labor being used for export, the 
states of California and Oregon are in direct competition with 
China. The California DOC has a line of clothing designed for 
export to the Asian market. The "Prison Blues" brand of clothes, 
made by prisoners in the Oregon, boasted of projected export sales 
of $1.2million in 1994.(3)

A minute ago, we stated that PIE requires prisoners to be paid 
prevailing wages for that work. But this doesnŐt mean that the 
prisoners actually get those wages.  Often, the great majority of 
wages are deducted for various state programs including paying for 
the prison. In Washington state, 20% of wages are deducted for the 
"cost of corrections", 10% goes towards non-interest bearing 
mandatory savings, 5% for a "Victims Compensation Fund" and then 
federal tax, medicare tax and social security are deducted. 
Prisoners could then see a real wage of $1.80-$2.80 an hour. But 
it could be even less as the law allows up to 80% of the wage to 
be deducted.(4) But even in that case, 98cents an hour is more 
than prisoners can earn in non-PIE work, so these jobs are in high 
demand.  

And of course, prisoners often have to support themselves while 
they are in prison. Toiletries must be paid for, as must medical 
care. 

While paying prevailing wages might be an inconvenience to the 
corporations they make their money back in other ways. 
Corporations don't pay prevailing rents to the prison (in fact 
often free or $1/year like Exmark Corp. in Washington State)(4), 
and the prison provides services that the corporation would 
otherwise have to pay for, such as warehouse security and often 
supervising workers. This all ends up as more exploitation of 
prisoners and yet another government subsidy to the corporations.

Amerikan weapons of mass destruction are made in prison

The Federal Prison Industries, or UNICOR, manufactures equipment 
and supplies for the U.$. military. Entry level wages are 23cents 
and hour. The Federal Bureau of Prisons boasts that the slave 
labor of prisoners has and continues to make significant  
contributionst towards supplying the needs of the military.

"UNICOR's military production ranges from TOW and other missile 
cables, munitions components, communciations equipment, bomb 
parts, engine overhauls, uniform sewing, etc."

Twenty six percent of federal prisoners work in UNICOR. The two 
notorious supermaxes of the federal system -- Marion and Florence 
-- require work in UNICOR as a condition of transfer. While most 
UNICOR work is military related, all UNICOR work in these two 
dungeons of political repression is military related.

The prison at Lexington, KY, made infamous by the video "Through 
the Wire" typically sells $12million in products to the military. 


What happens when workers are injured on the job?

When workers outside of prison are injured on the job, they are 
ensured certain protections by law. In prison it's another matter 
altogether. Nancy, a prisoner at FCI Dublin, explains what 
happened to her when she was injured on the job in prison:

[Track 8 November Coalition CD 2:42]
3-2-1

Nancy was recorded by the November Coalition for a CD entitled 
"Voices from the Drug War".


Corporate advocates and some prison officials say that prison 
labor is good for prisoners, because it gives them experience they 
will need to get jobs on the outside. In one sense, RAIL could 
agree: like any disciplined labor system, it serves the 
ideological function of preparing workers for wage work in an 
alienating, hierarchical economy. If prisoners have not had proper 
"education" before going to jail teaching them how to be good 
workers, then the prison might play that role. And, they might 
even be better off for it when they get out than some other 
prisoners. But by the same logic, slaves in the old South who 
learned how to grow cotton might have made better sharecroppers 
than those who did not. Either way, first they were slaves, then 
they were sharecroppers. RAIL's criticism is of the system. If the 
system wanted people to get good jobs, they never would have made 
them penniless "criminals" in the first place. 

Furthermore, prison slave labor is not training for jobs on the 
outside: many of the jobs done by prisoners are done in only two 
places: prison and Third World sweatshops. 

From reviewing the economics, it appears to RAIL that prisoners in 
the wage-slave jobs have more to gain than those who don't get 
that work, at least in the narrow economic sense. However, 
refusing to work in these industries is an effective attack on the 
prison-slave system. As with all oppressive labor systems, 
refusing to
work is the first tool of the rebel worker. The power of the 
prison strike has not escaped revolutionaries in prison, as mail 
to the Maoist Internationalist Movement reflects. One West 
Virginia prisoner wrote in 1996: 


"I have been seriously thinking of means to knock the prison 
industry off its foundation. And the only way I can see it, is for 
prisoners to quit working for UNICOR. This would have to be a plan 
implemented through out all the U.S. prisons. I'm sure that the 
results would be devastating to the prisons themselves in six 
months or less. 

"Prisoners would have to gradually quit the UNICOR. Unfortunately 
the ones who are paying for incarceration, assessment, FRP, etc., 
would be hit the worst. They could be subjected to segregation, 
put on refusal status, or face being shipped to another facility. 
But you could only do this with so many prisoners. Mass shipment 
to me is highly unlikely especially with the prison space growing 
more scarce each day. 

"The prisoner would also have to use a backup buddy system. The 
backup friend, if you can find someone you trust, would receive 
money on their account, small amounts, to buy for that friend his 
personal needs at the commissary. If a person tried to stock up on 
many items before quitting UNICOR, if that person was to be 
shipped, they would lose everything, since everything is now being 
shipped home to your family. We have been receiving many women 
from other institutions and their attempts to stock up on items 
and clothing has backfired. 

"I realize that this would cause a lot of hardship for people. But 
as I see it, it would be a temporary setback, for a short time, in 
comparison to the many years that many prisoners have received on 
petty drug charges. I feel strongly that this plan will work. We 
need to pull together and knock the wheels off and take the money 
out of this slave labor operation. Crack the foundation of the 
prison drug war. Quit UNICOR."(20) 

A member of the Texas Prisoners' Labor Union wrote in April: 


"The Texas Prisoners' Labor Union is established to provide inmate 
laborers with a social and political forum from which to promote 
principles of social justice in a manner consistent with human 
rights. 

"The Texas Penal Colony is one of the most expansive industries in 
the United States. However, while the populations have swelled to 
over capacity, the Texas Correctional Industries programs have not 
kept in step. As a result, basic concepts of imprisonment in Texas 
remain unchanged from the prior plantation dictates that induced 
slavery. Inmate laborers in Texas are wholly uncompensated for 
their work. Conditions remain barbaric in spite of twenty years of 
formal litigation, offering inmate laborers little hope for the 
future. 

"There are no effective programs which would allow for an 
environment wherein rehabilitation and productivity are 
synonymous. Therefore those of us who remain confined within the 
penal colony are doomed to remain chained to the revolving door 
that has long become the accepted policy of incarceration in 
Texas. Legislators are happy to accept this concept of 
incarceration as it provides Texans with an ever growing industry, 
which in turn provides the citizenry of Texas with jobs in various 
areas of corrections. 

"This insane policy must be stopped and it is up to us to stop it. 
We must bind together so as to form a political base (pause) from 
which we may collectively assert our human rights and negotiate 
collective bargaining for improved working and living conditions, 
(pause) wages and rehabilitative programs that will allow us to 
develop skills and habits which will lend to our once again 
entering society (pause) as responsible and productive citizens. 
Daily the current Texas government is stripping more and more away 
from us and will continue to do so until there is nothing left. 
Only WE can stop this onslaught against human rights and social 
justice. Only WE can help ourselves."(24) 


These prisoners show the way toward a new path for organized 
resistance to the system of prison slavery. We can work together 
on both sides of the prison walls to end this system of Amerikan 
slavery.