Prison Labor – Chain Gang – Agra pickers - Call Centers

Out-sourcing with government protections - Not saying its wrong... just sayin......


Fox News reported “The only female chain gang in the world was out Wednesday morning with a message: drink and drive and you could be joining the chain gang. You can't miss this crew cleaning up trash in a field in Phoenix, wearing black and white striped jail garb and sporting "Clean(ing) and Sober" pink shirts.” Such a comment in Phoenix newspapers and television stations don’t draw much attention any longer since the practice of women on chain gangs was implemented by Sheriff Joe Arpaio who uses this chain gang for his own publicity as he “runs the only all-female chain gang in history.”

The concept of using prison labor in Maricopa County is not new and under Sheriff Joe, he has capitalized his own workforce using prison [jail] labor to supplement his basic services within the huge jail complex and also serving the 3 million people of Phoenix and surrounding communities in the county. Sheriff Joe, bragging about reducing his daily costs once said that “I got meal costs down to 40 cents a day per inmate. It costs $1.15 a day to feed the department's dogs. Now, I'm cutting prisoners' calories from 3,000 to 2,500 a day.” In the meantime, he continues his publicity stunts by parading this female chain gang on the streets of Phoenix while bragging that his jail tenants must pay $10 every time they need to see a nurse. They wear pink underwear and black and white striped uniforms. Many inmates live in tents under the blazing Arizona sun in temperatures during summer where the temperature has already exceeded 114 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in mid-October, it was over 100 degrees.

Many early mornings, women assembled for chain gang duty. They were padlocked together by the ankle, five to each chain, and marched military style out to a van that transported them to their work site -- a county cemetery half an hour out of the city in the desert. These women pick up litter, grab the weeds and bury those who died [indigents] on the streets or in the hospitals that have no family or next to kin claiming their bodies. Sheriff Joe said "It's free labor and it's undignified. How is this helping to rehabilitate anyone?" he said.

For Arizona female prisoners, the story is much the same as they are transported out to the farms where they work. In an article written by the Huffington Post, they write “For the past 20 years, Wal-Mart has fed its stores with agricultural produce from a company called Martori Farms. According to Hoover's profile of the company, Martori is "a fruit and vegetable grower, packer, shipper, and wholesaler and is the largest commercial agricultural company in Arizona The agra business was "hand-picked" by Wal-Mart, and in 2007, the giant retailer showcased Martori Farms as part of its "Salute To America's Farmers" program. The Martori farm operations took seed in the 1930s Arizona soil, later specializing in melons and broccoli. The company today has 3 major locations in Arizona, and one site in California. One of its holdings contains more than 15,000 acres of farmland. Wal-Mart has described its relationship with Martori Farms as an example of "fruitful collaboration." The retailer's first 35 superstores were stocked with organic cantaloupes from Martori Farms. "Our relationship with Martori Farms is an excellent example of the kind of collaboration we strive for with our suppliers," a Wal-Mart spokesman said four years ago. "Wal-Mart buys more United States agricultural products than any other retailer in the world and we're proud to salute American farmers like Martori Farms."

But new allegations about the use of prison labor at the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Martori Farms could blight the fruitful relationship between the retailer and the farmer. For almost 20 years, Wal-Mart has had a clear policy forbidding the use of prison labor by its vendors. "Since 1992 Wal-Mart has required its supplier-partners to comply with a stringent code of conduct," Wal-Mart said in a 1997 press statement. "This code requires factories producing merchandise for Wal-Mart to be automatically denied manufacturing certification if inspections reveal...evidence of forced or prison labor." The Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) has supplied prisoner labor for private agricultural businesses for almost 20 years. For at least the last four years, the state of Arizona has fined employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. Farmers responded by calling up the ADC for workers. "We are contacted almost daily by different companies needing labor," the manager of the business development unit of Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI) told the Christian Science Monitor in 2007. "Maybe it was labor that was undocumented before, and they don't want to take the risk anymore because of possible consequences, so they are looking to inmate labor as a possible alternative.

According to jail officials “Inmates volunteer for the chain gang, but not because they like the work. It’s because many already know that it is much more uncomfortable and hotter in the tents than it is outside. The Sheriff says he's doing the women a favor.” It’s only 113 today. In the tents - 138 yesterday, so they are cooling off by being here," he said.

Fox News reports that “Arpaio plans to put the chain gangs out in force for the MLB All-Star weekend. They will also be reminding baseball fans about drinking and driving. The women all volunteered for chain gang duty to get out of lock-down, where four prisoners are shut in a cell 8 by 12 square feet 23 hours a day. If they spend 30 days on the chain gang, picking up trash, weeding or burying bodies, they can get out of the punishment cells and back to the tents. "The intent is humiliation of the inmates and political grandstanding for the public. It makes the sheriff look tough and that's all it does," said Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, a Washington think-tank which promotes reduced reliance on incarceration in the justice system. Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch said Arpaio was clearly unfamiliar with or did not care about international treaties that set human rights standards binding on all U.S. officials. "These laws prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, yet Arpaio takes great pride in subjecting prisoners to degrading treatment," she said.

Not a very well kept secret as the world uses prison labor for almost every conceivable task one can imagine, the United States has captured the lead in this labor force as it currently houses 25 % of the world’s incarcerated population. Since the concept of outsourcing has become an acceptable method of bolstering the workforce since 1999, the United States has employed prisoners for low cost alternative workforces to offset cost and overhead while taking away those jobs form those citizens who are currently unemployment and seeking hard to find a job to bring home a paycheck for their families. Although the argument could hold water, the fact remains that prison labor will work for almost nothing and as little as 50 cents an hour, these prisoners are just a small portion of the labor force that resembles slavery in some areas.

Beginning in 2002, the prison work force was expanded from out in the fields picking vegetables and farming produce to the cleaner more sophisticated telephone call centers that thrive around the country staffed with convicted felons talking to you or your family members and asking them questions about your lifestyle and your spending habits. Using acronyms to avoid instant detection these prison run firms are spread nationwide and are picking up contracts from manufacturers who have no conscience in the use of prison labor although some, like Wal-Mart, say that they are prohibiting contracts with prison labor firms but in reality looking the other way to save money and make profits. In 2003, Dell (DELL) “ended its contract with UNICOR for hardware recycling services amidst an onslaught of objections to the contract. Some critics expressed concerns that convicts handling toxic waste were not protected by OSHA and EPA safety standards. Others complained that employing prisoners hurt the private recycling industry. The PC maker said it transferred the work to private vendors for business reasons and not in response to protests from special interest groups.”

Two such acronyms are the FPI and the ACI vendors that apply business tactics with prison labor. The FPI, a federal arm of the government prison system was created in 1934 by President F. D. Roosevelt to make goods for the federal bureaucracies only and it wasn’t until 1999 that legislation passed this ability to sell to private vendors or corporations as this practice has now expanded throughout the country. The ACI, Arizona Correctional Industries is a private vendor created under the state’s regulatory system that hires prison labor and contracts with industrial manufacturers, agricultural growers and other sorts to sell prison made goods to the private businesses claiming extravagant savings and low overhead. ACI has some distinct advantages over other businesses as they don’t have to worry about OSHA or many other labor standards as they are exempted from specific rules and inspections.

Sources:

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/morning_show/arpaio-sends-out-the-female-chain-gang-06292011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-norman/i-aint-gonna-work-on-mart_b_886596.html?view=print

http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcing_s_Best_Kept_Secret_?page=2&taxonomyId=3195