Inmates Launch Series of Work Stoppages to Protest ‘Slave Labor’
Posted on Sep 16, 2016
By Sonali Kolhatkar
Prison inmates in the United States are paid much less than minimum wage. Here, inmates harvest turnips at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. (Gerald Herbert / AP)
Editor’s note: Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun understood the risk he was taking by speaking to Sonali Kolhatkar for this column.
Prisoners in dozens of correctional facilities around the nation launched a labor strike Sept. 9, a day that, appropriately, was the 45th anniversary of New York’s Attica prison rebellion. The U.S. incarcerates the greatest number of people in the world, and most of them are expected to work inside the prisons that hold them, usually for well below minimum wage.
Inmates say the system is akin to slavery and hence unconstitutional. In fact, the prison system in some states is financially dependent on the underpaid labor of inmates. In stopping their work, prisoners in states like Alabama, Ohio, Mississippi and Texas are risking serious forms of retaliation in order to call attention to their exploitation.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/inmates_launch_series_of_work_stoppages_to_protest_slave_labor_20160916
