Home> PA AFL-CIO > Convention Resolutions

2004 Convention Resolutions

Resolution No. 50

PRISON LABOR

            WHEREAS, The use of prison labor has grown at the expense of jobs for workers throughout the Commonwealth, and the growth of prison industries is on the rise nationally, and many American corporations are taking advantage of low wages, and moving work out of existing factories into prisons; and

            There are 8,000 such inmates now doing work in prisons in the USA for as low as forty cents per hour, and making it impossible for legitimate employers to compete, and law-abiding workers to understand why they are losing their jobs to people who break the law; and

            Thirty states have laws making it legal to contract out prison labor to private companies, where the workers have virtually no rights and are paid just a fraction of outside wages, much of which they do not keep, as the prison system charges them for food, etc.; and

            Prison industries sales rose to $1.81 billion in 1995 from $393 million in 1980; and

            Prisoners were used during a strike by TWA Flight Attendants to take reservations, thus freeing up the ticket agents for use as scab flight attendants; and in Oregon, were used to sew jeans called, “Prison blues,” and in 1995, $4.5 million of this product was sold and Levi Strauss closed their domestic plants, partially due to this unfair competition; and prisoners in New Mexico are being used to take hotel reservations, obtaining personal credit card information; and

            Products can bear the “Made in the U.S.A.” label, but the consumer does not know whether USA standards were used in making the product.

            THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That this 36th Constitutional Convention of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO renew it’s commitment to work against any legislation that is submitted to our Legislature that increases the current work situation in Pennsylvania’s prisons and legalize the practice.

Submitted by:

PHILADELPHIA JOINT BOARD, UNITE PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO & S. JERSEY JOINT BOARD, UNITE MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL JOINT BOARD, UNITE

Referred to:               Legislation Committee

Committee Action:

Convention Action:

      

All site content ©2004-5 by Pennsylvania AFL-CIO or others. Tools you may need to get the most out of this Web site.