Prison labor

https://endtheexception.com/corporate?mc_cid=09dd3afc2a&mc_eid=90ecc77d34

Tired of empty corporate gestures for Juneteenth?

Call to Action

For years, corporate America has struggled to properly acknowledge and recognize Juneteenth. While Juneteenth is often falsely regarded as the end of slavery, it is nevertheless an important marker in U.S. history as a reminder of a justice delayed that continues today. This year, ahead of Juneteenth, we are offering corporate America the opportunity to take real action by endorsing the Abolition Amendment to truly end slavery for all.

We’re excited to announce that Ben & Jerry’s has just become the first major corporation to publicly endorse the Abolition Amendment. We need your help to urge others to follow their lead.

Thanks to the exception in the 13th Amendment, slavery still exists in our nation’s prisons. Incarcerated people are forced to work in dangerous conditions for pennies an hour or nothing at all under the threat of additional punishment, including the loss of family contact, solitary confinement, denial of parole, and even violence. In the South, many work on former slave plantations that have been turned into prison farms — harvesting crops, raising livestock, and processing food for some of our nation’s most popular brands.

Corporate involvement in prison slavery dates all the way back to convict leasing, a practice by which states leased the labor of incarcerated people to private corporations and individuals to generate revenue. This shameful involvement continues today, as corporations across the United States directly contract labor from prisons or source prison-produced goods. The supply chains of major brands like Tyson, Wendy’s, Aldi, and Walmart have been linked to prison labor.

No corporation should profit from forced labor, and we’re taking action to make sure this stops now. Join us in calling on corporate America to take a stand on ending prison slavery by ending their reliance on prison labor and endorsing the Abolition Amendment that would end prison slavery.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-injuries-d...

My response:
Hi, I am from Canada and have read a bit about your prison labor. I have some questions about the validity of your investigative findings. In Canada, many people go out as volunteers, receive minimal training and collect zero monies and/or other benefits to fight forest fires, rescue people from floods, natural disasters, and even assist with other dangerous search and rescue missions.

Not only that, but even here in New York City, there are volunteers who plant and maintain gardens in city-run/funded parks, plant and harvest vegetables and herbs in community gardens, and even spend time manning information booths and educating students, citizens, tourists, and other visitors about museums, historical sites, parks, gardens, heritage sites—freely discussing and sharing about the richness and diversity of the many communities, cultural societies and associations that comprise the city and surrounding area.

So, from that perspective I am trying to understand why this is such an outrage? If someone is imprisoned for assault and battery, rape, murder, or other violent crimes, why shouldn't they fucking work? Most all of us have to work, so why shouldn't prisoners also work? Should those who are incarcerated for say, raping and murdering children just get to sit around all day with a cell phone spanking their monkey?

To be clear, I'm not an advocate for those who are in for petty crimes or those making legitimate efforts and strides to reform and improve being consigned to brutal treatment and hard labor for nothing—I do believe there should be avenues where inmates can learn skills and gain education and experience surrounding how to make money legitimately in order to prepare them for life outside of prison so they hopefully don't just go back to the same lifestyle that got them imprisoned in the first place. There's definitely some inmates who were never exposed to other ways of living that didn't involve criminal enterprises and who didn’t learn important life skills from parents who cared, but this certainly does not constitute the entire prison population.

I am 100% certain that some of the prisoners who have gotten injured are injuring themselves purposely to receive sympathy and benefits, such as long-term disability. This happens in Canada from the "welfare class" and all the way up the ladder. It is called taking advantage of the social safety net or your (usually union-based) employer. Union employees are often especially excellent at finding the loopholes and exploiting the benefits of their union workplace. For example, they can work on holidays and take "overtime" shifts and thus end up getting extra time off and essentially making the most money for the least amount of work possible by exploiting all the "benefits" of the unionized workplace.

Some personal experiential notes on the "welfare class":
I used to be homeless and I grew up under the care of the Ministry of children and families and received assistance from social services. While I am thankful there are supports available, I also know that some people will exploit these suports to their advantage—especially those who have no interest in working and earning money legitimately to contribute to a functional democratic society.

Yes, many homeless people do have serious untreated mental illnesses and other issues that legitimately require intervention and assistance; however, most of them are not committing serious crimes such as armed robbery, trafficking, rape, murder, and/or selling large quantities of hard drugs (meaning drugs other than marijuana because hey guys, newsflash from Canada, weed is about as "harmful" as alcohol, and I'll 100% argue to my damn grave that weed is less dangerous than alcohol).

Anyhow, point being that if you end up incarcerated and you have zero interest in ever making money legitimately, and you have zero interest in learning/accepting that there is another way to live that doesn't require threatening, injuring, or stealing from other people who are working hard to make a living and support their families, then why wouldn't some of those people just decide to get injured so they can collect money through social supports or even by suing—that is kind of an American thing, eh? Some people see an opportunity to make money by "accidentally" getting hurt or by slipping and falling. They go, hey, here's my chance to maybe never work again and get paid!

And if you can't wrap your head around that, then I guess you can't fathom that not everyone thinks "nicely". Some people are only out for themselves and what they can get and couldn't give two shits about who they step on or who gets fucked over in the process of them getting what they want.

I am not a criminal myself, but I most definitely know how to think like one, and I read this article and couldn't help but think that most of these prison injuries are probably self-inflicted. Do you have further resources on this subject? Do they truly get insufficient training? How does this compare to injuries for farm workers? Or to other workers in high-risk professions?

And isn't this part of the reason why we have so much bullshit safety signs and procedures everywhere, sucking the goddamn fun out of our lives and jobs??