UE Convention Resolutions
Curb the Prison-
Industrial Complex

Prison inmates represent an ideal workforce for business: low wages, no health benefits, no absenteeism, no vacations and guaranteed union-free.

And this potential workforce acute; for the most part, young and able-bodied acute; is big, and getting bigger. The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world; today, nearly 2 million Americans are behind bars in federal, state or local custody. That iacute;s a half-million more prisoners than China, which has nearly five times our population. The U.S. incarceration rate is now 672 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents, a rate higher than any other country except Russia. Thatís a rate six to 10 times the rate of most European countries, which also enjoy lower crime rates.

This enormous prison population represents a huge pool of cheap labor that directly threatens the wages and conditions of those of us who work on the outside of prison walls.

Prison-industry partnerships are up 200 percent since their beginning in 1979. Thirty-seven states participate in these arrangements, which put prisoners to work in a variety of manufacturing and service jobs. For years prisoners in California booked flights for TWA. Microsoft uses convicts to ship Windows software. Honda pays $2 an hour to prison labor in Ohio who do jobs that UAW members once did for $20 an hour. In Georgia a recycling plant replaced 50 sorters with prisoners. Of those laid off, 35 had taken the jobs to get off welfare, and ended up with neither welfare nor work.

Advocates of prison labor say that exploiting convicts doesnít undercut American workers because this manufacturing and service work is done overseas anyway. They say the U.S. can best compete with China and its prison labor by expanding prison labor in this country. Fueling business interest in prison labor is todayís tight labor market, which gives workers an edge. Legislation in Congress would allow more companies to use the U.S. captive labor force.

Sen. Phil Gramm (R., Texas), a close ally of Gov. George W. Bush, would like prisons turned into industrial parks. "I want them to make prisoners work 10 hours a day, six days a week," says Gramm. "I want to enter into contracts with major manufacturers so that we can produce component parts in prisons now being produced in places like Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Korea."

Due in large part to the collapse of basic manufacturing and the prevalence of institutionalized racism, African-Americans make up a shockingly disproportional segment of the prison population. While African-Americans make up 12 percent of the total U.S. population, they comprise 51 percent of the prison population. The return of convict labor is a reminder of the ugly practice of subjecting the Civil War Southís black population to a new form of slavery following the Civil War. It is no coincidence that much of the leading opposition to the prison-industrial complex comes from the African-American community.

The renewed misuse of prison labor coincides with an expanding number of businesses with interests in prisons themselves. The most blatant example of private enterprise involvement in corrections is privately operated prisons. Some 27 states use private prisons and nearly 90,000 inmates are held in for-profit prisons.

Statesí selling of prison labor to private companies at the cost of jobs on the outside is not unlike forcing former welfare recipients into workfare jobs that in many cases were held by union workers. The abuse of prison labor by private corporations is also the moral equivalent of NAFTA. The super-exploitation of incarcerated labor provides super-profits to a few companies and threatens the wages, benefits and working conditions and jobs of free labor. Like the labor parties and unions of earlier generations, we must declare loudly that as free workers we will not be forced to compete with the unfree.

1. Calls on UE Districts and locals to oppose any legislation to expand the exploitation of prison labor by private companies;

2. Calls on Congress to prohibit the use of prison labor by private companies for private profit;

3. Demands that the displacement of private or public sector workers by prison labor be strictly prohibited;

4. Opposes the private operation or ownership of prisons;

5. Demands that criminal penalties be imposed on companies making use of inmate labor for purposes related to strikebreaking;

6. Demands that until use of prison labor for profit is prohibited, all such labor performed by inmates be compensated at no less than the prevailing wage and benefits;

7. Urges that prisoners participating in work programs be covered by workersí compensation and occupational safety and health laws and receive Social Security credit.