A New Kind of Wage Slave

[flashl]

Corporations are getting rich using federal prisoners as captive labor pools.

Unless she’s dying or recovering from surgery, a patient at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell must work. The hospital out on the banks of Lake Worth is run by the Bureau of Prisons, and its patients are women who have been convicted of federal crimes. Bureau rules require all prisoners — even those in wheelchairs — to work at whatever jobs their infirmities will allow, from scrubbing floors to cleaning toilets.

Just across the street from the hospital complex is a camp for minimum-security women prisoners who are not ill. They get most of the hot, hard jobs — cleaning boilers, welding, mowing. The pay is a lousy 12 cents an hour with no raises. That’s why a job that many on the outside would take only as a last resort is the most coveted in the compound: Ernestine the telephone operator.

So when you call directory assistance using, say, Excel Telecommunications, chances are good your inquiry might be answered by a federal prisoner. At Carswell, a fifth of the prison workforce — most from the camp but a few from the hospital as well — get to sit in cubicles in an air-conditioned building, start at almost double the pay of the regular prison jobs, and, if they behave and don’t make mistakes, get regular raises until they reach the maximum pay of — hold onto your hat — $1.45 an hour. Of course, they have to work seven and a half years to reach that maximum. And since this center hasn’t been open long enough for anyone to make the maximum, the highest pay at Carswell is $1.15 an hour.


== snip ==

With toothpaste at $5.95 in the prison commissary, inmates who take those calls for Excel have to work between five and 25 hours to earn enough for one tube. But by comparison, they’re lucky: Women who work at other prison jobs have to sweat out 49 hours for the luxury of brushing their teeth.

The math on the other end is even simpler, if grander in scale: Excel, a $2.5 billion global company, comes out the clear winner.
Read More ...

[lildreamer316]

1. This is why marajuana arrests are on the rise.

So they can have more wage slaves.

[flashl]

2. Also, probably the reasons for enhanced sentences

as well as, kids tried as adults and given life.

[MedleyMisty]

3. Say what you want about extreme comparisons

But I've come to the conclusion that inmates, of a camp or a prison, are thought to be the ideal workforce by multinational corporations.

Hell, working at Arby's was just maybe two rungs up the ladder from that.

[NMDemDist2]

5. yerah, the Corporations would HATE to pay real wages to people

who are trying to support their families.

:banghead:

[flashl]

6. Families on the outside lose their jobs to the prison factories behind fences. n/t

[lonestarnot]

4. This is not FUCKING NEW! It has been going on for so fucking long that it now cannot be stopped!

And on edit, I saw a new tennacle developing just today in ... I forget the location... anyway, screeners for domestic violence by cop. :toast:

[flashl]

10. I strongly suspect that immigration detention centers are another facet. n/t

[lonestarnot]

11. That tenacle has been there for a period already.

[Matariki]

7. Do the corporations pay that little - or is the remainder used by the state in some way?

[flashl]

8. They pay that little. n/t

[ret5hd]

9. Carswell is a hell-hole for many and a death sentence for some:

read about the torture, mistreatment, and negligence at the Carswell facility here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4112

and here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3980

and here (excellent story):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3881

and here (at bottom of page):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3792

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3325

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2691

and here (about Susan McDougal's stay there):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=671

and here (seventh guard at Carswell convicted of sexual abuse)
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=1479

and here (guards and doctors sexually abuse inmates at Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2119

and here (nuns protesting "School of the Americas" sentenced to Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2211

and here (more Carswell prison rape):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2489

[flashl]

12. Thats why I can't understand outrage...

about American brutality overseas when we have horror stories to tell inside the U.S.

[ret5hd]

13. I have enough outrage for both, thank you.

I can't understand the LACK of outrage.

[Danger Mouse]

16. Because Americans have a hard-on for being 'tough on crime'

they don't care what happens to these people...until it happens to them. They figure 'they get what they deserved'

[Melynn]

14. Corporate fascism, pure and simple

Today, it's them. Tomorrow, it's you. And me.

[PDJane]

15. Remember the lobbyists, too........

The ones who represent your privatized prison system, and who actively work for minimum sentencing so that they can have an available slave workforce. This is a totalitarian concept; china runs things this way.

[Danger Mouse]

17. this is our country. this is what it truly is.

and it is frightening.

[Synnical]

18. http://prisonplanet.com/

http://prisonplanet.com/

[LibertyorDeath]

19. It's one of the main reasons America has the highest

incarceration rate in the Western World

"A New Kind of Wage Slave" and it's not that New....

[flashl]

20. It seems the PIC uses census data to project stock growth

Prison stocks, prisoner ranks seen rising-Barron's

Oct 7 (Reuters) - Prison stocks are expected to rise despite a recent U.S. Census report pointing to a lower than expected rise in prison population, Barron's reported in its Oct. 8 edition.

The Census report, which said U.S. prisons' population is growing at 4 percent annually, countered a February study by Pew Charitable Trusts that forecast prison population to rise 13 percent annually.

Barron's said Pew's report is likely a more accurate assessment of the prison population growth as the U.S. government's report polled 37 states, compared to Pew's data from 42 states and estimates from the other eight states.

Corrections Corp of America (CXW.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which trades at around $25, is likely see profits rise 20 percent annually and its share price could reach $30.

GEO Group Inc (GEO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) could see shares soar to $35 from its current high-$20 levels.

Cornell Co (CRN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) shares could jump by 40 percent. It closed on Friday at $26.03 on the New York Stock Exchange.

"If you have reservations about owning a stake in a harsh institution like a prison, consider this: Some of our nation's most creative CEOs now reside in prisons," Barron's said. (Reporting by Kenneth Li)

Creative CEOs as in Enron creative or CEO President creative?