650,000 Iraqi souls

On Monday, April 2, 2007, longtime CERJer Lee Wood wrote:

Of course this should be shocking to the public conscience -- 650,000 Iraqi souls, men women, and children -- dead, slaughtered for the benefit of rich white American billionaire men and their families.

I asked one shell-shocked returning GI about US soldiers being killed and wounded, and he got very serious and sad, and I could see that he desperately needs post traumatic stress disorder counseling by the VA, and/or Vet Center(s). Then I asked about all the dead Iraqi men, women and children, and he abruptly said, "Oh, they don't count"!

He has been paralyzed with indifference, hardened to screen out emotions of terror and fear, and to turn those emotions into killing "those gooks", or be killed himself as part of an occupying force in another country's sovereign land.

I asked him, in front of my nephew's high school buddies, if he had heard the report of the soldier that refused to return to combat after being on patrol within a massive open pit depository where bodies were dumped by the thousands. This young man reportedly arrived with a squad of soldiers and was told to search among the mass of dead bodies to find spent cartridges and weapons to be used as evidence for the military to justify such slaughter as "self defense". While searching among the dead bodies, this young soldier soon looked up to see other GI's in recreation kicking around soccer balls. One of the balls was kicked his way, and he turned around to kick it back, only to find that it was a mutilated and decapitated Iraqi head. He threw up, returned to the APC, returned to base, and immediately checked into the hospital with a nervous breakdown. This screamed horror at his idealistic reasoning for joining the military, and it shattered his defense of America values and t
ruth. It was, and is, fascism.

My nephew's buddies were shocked. Then I told them about the conservative estimate of 650,000 Iraqi men women and children slaughtered, and that the actual count might be well over one million dead, and two million who have fled the country, like Moses leading the masses out of danger and to relative safety.

The young returned GI was staggered by this data, and I could see his turmoil. So, I relented with my rant. Later, I listened as he attempted to recruit his now graduated buddies into the military. He explained that he would go to the recruiter's office with them to make sure they got a fair deal. And I was so happy to hear one after another tell him, "NO"!

Next day, I told my nephew that people get financial bonuses for delivering new recruits, so beware. This clearly entered his consciousness, as if being pre-armed with survival data.

It is beyond "shame" that psychological warfare programming has worked to paralyze us into indifference (within this security base of operations) ... to this fascist, blood-sucking genocide. Consider the Twin Towers and 9/11 -- were you shocked? Hell yeah! Would we be shocked if the Empire State Building was blown up? Hell yeah! Would we be shocked if 3,000 Sunday Church services were bombed and all inside were thus slaughtered. Hell, yes! Would we be shocked if 650,000 Americans were slaughtered in war right here at home? How many millions of Americans would immediately flee to Canada and Mexico?

I am so very sorry that I have not stopped this slaughter, that we collectively have failed, and for me, I hereby sincerely apologize to the Iraqi people for our slaughter of their poor men, women, and children by our poor soldiers for rich white American men; and I do want to humbly thank the Iraqi people for not killing our small children like we have killed theirs.

=========================================
COLLEGIUM IUSTITIÆ ÆQUITATEM RESTITUENTI
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
John Woolman College of Equity-Restorative Justice
Peacemaking and Conflict Transformation [CERJ]
c/o John Wilmerding
217 High Street, Brattleboro, VT, USA 05301
Phone: (01)-802-254-2826 Email to: CERJ@igc.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"... where Quakers and revolutionaries join for life ..."
-- Laura Nyro, from 'New York Tendaberry', 1969
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To join (or leave) the College's email list, send
an email message to wilmerding@earthlink.net
or to CERJ@igc.org, including your first & last name,
your email address, and your state, province or
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at this site: http://lists.topica.com/lists/CERJ/read
=========================================

Prisoner Labor Litigation

This article came to us via alt.prisons, and it's well worth passing to CAPS Members and good friends.



We at CAPS have shown and requested our supporters and allies to be conscious of this litigation, and to provide endorcement, and related materials to assist Attorney Serra in his present struggle against prison slave labor. Moreover, we endorse this litigation, hope it will expand to all corners on behalf of millions of prison slaves across this guilty nation.



Defense Attorney Tony Serra Sues Feds Over Slave Labor Practices
by Lynda Carson tenantsr...@yahoo.com


http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/01/18387743.php
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.indybay.org/newsitem...


San Francisco,CA,USA
Oakland, CA
During late March, San Francisco's well known and respected activist attorney J.Tony
Serra, filed suit against the federal government over slave labor practices.


Just out of California's Lompoc prison after serving 10 months for his years long tax
boycott, the celebrated attorney filed suit in an attempt to force the federal
government to pay it's prisoners a fair wage compensation for the work being done by
prison inmates, while serving time.


At the least, Serra believes that inmates should earn minimum wage for the work they
do in prison, and that unions should be allowed to organize and represent the inmates
for collective bargaining, to negotiate better wages and conditions for workers.


"It's a class action lawsuit," says Serra. "I'm a member (plaintiff) of the class
action suit, and it was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
California. We believe that Lompoc's pay scale is in violation of the U.S.
Constitution's Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments, which are the United Nations
covenants on political, civil and prisoner rights."


"Prisoners have no rights in America. They don't care about the prisoners in this
country, and the prisons are profitting from the slave-like conditions being forced
upon the inmates. Lompoc has a dairy and meat industry, including a cable factory
which is a supplier for the navy and armed forces industry. Lompoc generated alot of
money last year, little of which was returned to the inmates as compensation for the
work they do. The federal prison workforce generates around $65 million per year in
net profits, and I received 19 cents an hour when working at Lompoc, while the other
prisoners were only earning anywhere from 5 cents to $1.65 an hour for their labor.
These are slave wages, and often the inmates come back from work covered in filth and
are worn out at the end of the day," Serra said.


Serra and the 300 to 500 other plaintiffs involved in the class action lawsuit, are
being represented by attorney's Stephen Perelson of Mill Valley, and John Murcko and
William Simpich, of Oakland.


When I asked Serra if he believes the lawsuit will succeed; "I think that theres so
many immunities and waivers in regards to how prisons are being operated in this
nation, that the federal government will do everything possible to toss it out of the
courts. If we could manage somehow to bring this class action far enough through the
courts to bring it before a jury, I believe that we would win."


When asked about prison life; "It feels good to be out of prison, but I feel bad for
all of those that were left behind," said Serra. "I went through a week of feeling
like Rip Van Winkle when first getting out, and I had a fresh conciousness to look at
everything differently. Prison took me out of the city, where I could hear a breeze
passing by and the sounds of birds in the trees while watering lawns during my daily
5 hour work periods. I still had my license to practice law and could help others out
when possible, and I managed to write 2 books and several essays during the past 10
months. For those who complain about conditions while in prison, the guards would
often roll up on them and take them away. The worst part of prison is for snitches or
if you are a rat, and shunning is the first level of punishment, and violence is the
second punishment level that snitches go through," said Serra.


With over 7 million people caught up into the clutches of the so-called criminal
justice system and around 2.2 million people behind bars across the nation, the U.S.
has far more people locked up and exploited than any other country in the world. The
most notorious prisons are known as Supermax facilities, and corporate prisons such
as the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which manages around 69 prisons and
owns 40 prisons, with annual revenues of $1.5 billion in 2004, have often been
vilified for mismanagement scandals, lack of prisoner health care and for abusing
it's inmates.


Theres around 200,000 federal inmates nationwide, and federal inmates work for the
Federal Prisons Industry (FPI), a corporation owned by the federal government since
1934, and now known as Unicor (trade name) since 1978, which manufactures products
for use by the federal government. During 2003, Unicor had industrial operations at
112 factories located at 71 facilities within the federal prison system (including
Lompoc), while employing over 20,000 inmates.


"Minimum wage does not help much if your sucking up lead in one of Unicor's toxic
sweatshops," says Aaron Shuman, who spent 4 months in federal prison for protesting
against the "School of Americas," in Fort Benning, Georgia. "It's been documented
that prisoners working for Unicor have been exposed to excessive levels of toxic
metals at their computer recycling facilities, and I believe that inmates and prison
guards should receive reparations for the toxic metals exposure thats been occurring
in these prison factories. Unicor needs to shut down these toxic sweatshops now."


The prison industry is a $40 billion business annually in America, and it's not just
the prisoners being exploited. In California alone from 2002-2003, the inflated rates
of collect phone calls being made by prisoners in county jails adds up to $120
million a year in phone bills for their families and friends. The cost of the collect
phone calls were so inflated that they provided income to counties that range from
$100 to $1,376 per inmate, during the same period.


Prisoner populations continue to grow across the nation, and it's to the point that
children are now being held in corporate owned prisons in America, as a result of
immigrant arrests. A recent report reveals that fugitive apprehension teams hunting
down immigrants face a backlog with more than 623,000 cases in the pipeline as of
August 26, 2006.


Tony Serra closes by saying, "I hope our class action will force the federal
government to reconsider it's ways, and at the least to force the federal government
to pay a minimum wage to it's prisoner workforce."


Serra became well known as the brilliant attorney that would take cases no one else
wanted, and he inspired the 1989 film "True Believer", in which his character was
portrayed by famed actor James Woods. Through the years, Serra's cases ranged from
defending the Hells' Angels, Black Panther leader Huey Newton in a murder trial, and
the Symbionese Liberation Army, to representing his own sons in a dispute over a
skateboard ramp they built in Bolinas, CA.
--
_____________________________________________________


I intend to last long enough to put out of business all COck-suckers
and other beneficiaries of the institutionalized slavery and genocide.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------­---------------


"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive
Humvees, or calls in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or
high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism
does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It
undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts
sweatshops and special interests.Where people feel powerless, it
helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it
reminds them of their responsibility." ~~~~ Author Unknown ~~~~
___________________________________________________
--

The Celling of America:
An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry
Edited by Daniel Burton-Rose

Though many people believe otherwise, slavery has never been outlawed in the United States.

The Thirteenth Amendment included one very simple exemption: "...except as punishment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," an exemption which allowed the "black codes"—laws governing the behavior of newly-freed African-Americans—to criminalize a broad spectrum of mostly harmless behaviors, thereby assuring state and private interests of a relatively uninterrupted supply of slave labor. As the editors of The Celling of America point out, this slave labor provided much of the work of "modernizing" the South after the Civil War. In 1871, the Virginia Supreme Court made matters even clearer when it remarked that prisoners were "slaves of the state." 126 years later, those same slaves have assembled a powerful, eloquent, comprehensive and ultimately damning collective indictment of how our society treats those least able to defend themselves.


Prison Legal News, from which the source material for The Celling of America was culled, is a remarkable publication. Founded in 1990 by Dan Pens and Paul Wright, PLN has given voice to hundreds of prisoners and provided, in the near-total absence of responsible and constructive coverage by the mass media, lucid accounts of individual and systematic abuse within the penal system, as well as a considerable amount of critical analysis of the prison industry as a business sector. That this is written almost entirely by prisoners who generally abstain from invective and bombast in favor of measured fact, reason, and a keen sense of history makes the weight and value of this project even greater.


"Crime as a political issue was first exploited to good effect by Richard Nixon, who used it as a 'wedge issue' in the 1968 Presidential elections... [His success] at the polls helped to propel the crime issue as a political propaganda tool in every campaign since," begins the introduction to Part One. While pointing out that the increasingly sophisticated "propaganda machine of the corporate class" has taken less than 20 years to install the hobgoblin of crime at the forefront of public concern (compared to the 50 years it took to create pervasive anti-communist hysteria), the authors give us a detailed analysis of several specious anti-crime initiatives in Washington State that served as blueprints for similar legislation that was to follow.


Initiative 590, a 1992 "Three Strikes" Initiative that failed to win passage in the legislature, was almost entirely organized and funded by the gun lobby, an organization called "Citizens for Justice (CFJ),' and individuals who later went on to careers in the state legislature where they acted as professional prison-bashers." In this $42,252 "citizens" campaign, a mere $747 came from individual citizens. The obvious lack of public support didn't deter CPJ and their backers, however. They returned in 1993 armed with more "gun lobby blood money" and an almost identical initiative, I-593, which spent $210,616 and was passed into law with 76 percent of the vote.


Later sections of the book discuss the corporate media's relationship to prisoners and the prison industry, pointing out how "if it bleeds it leads"-style journalism distorts reality and escalates public hysteria at a time when violent crime in the United States is on a steady decline. Noelle Hanrahan, director of the Prison Radio Project, recounts the censorship by NPR (which apparently stands for National Police Radio) of Mumia Abu-Jamal's commentaries in response to pressure from the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police and discusses the threat of a well-spoken, articulate and incisive voice like Abu-Jamal's to the expansion of one of the U.S's "largest growth industries: human storage and slave labor."


Reading the detailed accounts of the corporate media's overwhelming pro-prison bias, which denies coverage to prisoners and generally parrots Department of Corrections/Bureau of Prisons press releases, one might be surprised at the efforts to limit or ban media access to prisoners. The problem, it seems, is that there are journalists and writers—many of whom are themselves prisoners—who still take quaint notions like compassion, human rights and radical social change seriously. Prisoncrats can't afford to have their burgeoning slave population humanized in the public eye. It's bad for business.


Also bad for business is thorough and responsible coverage of the increasingly draconian measures or neglect prisoners are subjected to: chain gangs, "Sudden In-Custody Death Syndrome" (no joke), outrageously deficient medical care, involuntary drugging, a tacit support for prisoner rape and violence, physically abusive and sometimes murderous prison guards who go unpunished and are otherwise encouraged by lack of action to continue their abusive ways, and the steady increase in state executions.

It's revealing to examine how easy it's been, during a period when the fortunes of most Americans have grown considerably worse, to peddle the snake oil of cruelty and a "hell on earth" as deterrence in spite of overwhelming evidence that violence only breeds more violence. In Chapter Three, the authors make the somber observation that "It has reached the point where the denial of basic freedoms is no longer considered a punishment: a fair bit of unpleasantness, preferably bordering on the cruel and unusual, should be thrown in for good measure.


As long as the public's attention is focused on the conditions of prisoners, and they are made to feel that prisoners "have it too good," their own drop in living conditions can be made to seem less intolerable by comparison."


The Celling of America includes a thorough examination of prison labor, and provides a clear understanding of the history, structural realities, current and past profiteers, rebellions and possible future of chattel and wage slavery in the United States. An excellent piece on the March 4th, 1996 Oak Park Heights Prisoner Work Strike points to the power of prisoner solidarity across racial and religious lines when it's coupled with strong "outside" political cohesion that includes organized labor.


Given labor's historical role as possibly the most vocal and effective opponent of prison-labor, it is curious that, except for a brief mention of the AFL-CIO's role in the Oak Part Heights struggle and Dan Pens' report on the expanding California Correctional Peace Officer's Association (CCPOA), the book has precious little to say about the ominous implications of labor's silence. Is it possible that labor, seeing opportunities for careers, and not just jobs in the booming prison-industrial complex, has effectively abandoned its traditional role and decided to jump on the gravy train in this maximum security democracy?


Despite this relative omission, there simply isn't enough space in this review to do justice to the pieces compiled for this section. The tortured logic of those who justify prison labor as a" rehabilitation" or "vocational" program is addressed in detail, and attention is drawn to state incentives and loopholes that constitute "welfare capitalism where private business is getting a handout from the state at taxpayer expense"


What becomes apparent with each successive article is that prison industry and the commodification of prisoners has been around in a largely static form for a very, very long time. The persistence of those who profit from imprisonment cannot be attributed merely to individual greed. Today, in addition to contractors who profit directly by employing prisoners at outrageously low wages and often in hazardous conditions, those profiting from imprisonment include "the Wall Street bond houses which underwrite prison construction; multinational corporations that build prisons; phone companies that extort high rates from prisoners' families; [and] security companies that arm and equip the guards." Surveying the evidence, it becomes increasingly difficult not to see America's Gulag" as a logical extension of an economic system which, riding a strong white-supremacist undercurrent, reduces human beings to their ability to produce and consume.


Proponents of prison expansion often contend that their actions are economically benefical to the general public. As the authors make abundantly clear, this is a ridiculous argument unless you're defining "economically justifiable" as "whatever lines the pockets of prison-related private business at taxpayer expense" The case of California's economy provides a telling case history. The desiccated corpse of what was once the crown jewel of the American education system lies in sharp juxtaposition against costly prison expansion programs and "get tough laws" that one RAND Corporation study predicts will inflate the corrections budget from 9 to 18 percent of all state expenditures, requiring "total spending for higher education and other government services to fall by more than 40 percent over the next eight years."


Perhaps nowhere in The CeIling of America is the appeal to those of us on the outside more wrenching than in Chapter Seven: "Permanent Lockdown: Control Unit Proliferation and the Proliferation of the Isolation Model." Designed to contain organized dissent and resistance through "isolation, separation, controlled movement in restraints, limited communication, and the selective use of violence,)" control unit prisons cage a disproportionate number of activists, political prisoners and "prison lawyers." The merest pretense of rehabilitation as a goal of incarceration is abandoned. As a 1997 survey by the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons found, 40 states, the federal prison system and the District of Columbia have control unit prisons. Their exorbitantly high cost of operation makes them extremely attractive to the burgeoning prison-industrial complex.


Adrian Lomax's "Report From the Hole," wherein he recounts his placement in 368 days of solitary confinement for daring to publish an article about an abusive guard at a prison in Wisconsin is truly harrowing. Ray Luc Levasseur, indicted as one of the Ohio 7 and now serving a 45-year sentence in USP Marion for charges stemming from the bombing of United States military contractors, General Electric offices, and the South African consulate, writes:


Worst of the worst is when the illusion clashes with the reality The illusion—that the criminalization of poverty, and the isolation and the degradation of prisoners provides an effective humane response to social ills and The reality—that crimes begin at the top with predatory capitalists profiting grotesquely while the results of their activities mire the rest of us in economic and social rot... For years, prisoncrats raved about the deterrent effect of Marion. If it works so well why hasn't it put itself out of business? Marion/ AVX didn't deter the October '95 uprisings—the most widespread and destructive in the federal prison system's history... They didn't deter USP Atlanta from grabbing headlines with its high level of violence. They have not deterred prisoners transferred to other prisons or released to the streets from picking up new charges. Control unit prisons are not the solution. They are the problem. By any financial measure, statistic or body count, the prison system is an abysmal failure.



The collection ends with struggle. Prisoners have always rebelled, in the face of brutal retaliation, against their captors. Many of the rebellions discussed have been militant and bloody, such as Attica in 1971, the Lucasville Easter Uprising on April 11, 1993, and the numerous uprisings that followed an October 18, 1995 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to overrule a U.S. Sentencing Commission recommendation to end the racist sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine offenses. Other struggles have utilized work strikes, hunger strikes, and various forms of sabotage. Competing opinions are aired about the efficacy of violent versus non-violent resistance.

While conceding that improvements in prison conditions have occurred as a result of violent uprisings, Adrian Lomax contends that "every act of violent protest by prisoners strengthens the correctional administrators' hand, [leading to] increased funding, more oppressive security measures and the construction of maximum-security prisons." Yet Lomax acknowledges that nonviolent protests are often squelched before they happen by ruthless prison administrators who will not tolerate prisoners who organize nonviolent protests. What's worse, the prison administrators have the law on their side: "The Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners have no constitutional right to organize collective protests."


A frighteningly rapacious agglomeration of prisoncrats, capitalizing on the country's descent into an ever crueler era of social vengeance, is drooling all over itself about the fabulous re-emerging growth industry of human storage and slave labor. The writing is undoubtedly on the wall for anyone who agrees to read it. The editors and inmate commentators who contributed to The Celling of America have carved up that wall, some while locked in lightless cells the size of an average bathroom 22-24 hours a day. They have presented us here with a testimonial to the human spirit, assailing us with clear-eyed analysis and reporting, brutally honest accounts of individual and systematic abuse, and a far-reaching grasp of the reality of the society we share with them. The problems are enormous, and the solutions aren't always obvious, but surely anyone reading these words with an open mind will be moved to deep concern if not outright disgust for a nation that seems to have temporarily taken leave of its senses, not to mention its humanity.

Reviewed by Brian Brasel
06.15.98

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March 27, 2007

Shareowner Activism Precedes Development of SRI Slavery Screen
by Bill Baue

Most slavery exists far up the supply chain, and auditing practices do not yet exist to monitor for slavery at second- or third-tier suppliers, so it is too early to enact an enforceable slavery screen.

SocialFunds.com -- Many people file slavery in the annals of history, abolished by Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, there are more people enslaved in the world right now than at any time in human history--an estimated 27 million, according to Free the Slaves (FTS), a Washington, DC-based non-profit whose mission is to end slavery worldwide. The modern global slave trade is gaining increasing attention with the recent publication of books such as Disposable People by FTS President Kevin Bales and Not for Sale by University of San Francisco Ethics Professor Dave Batstone.

Socially responsible investors (SRIs) have long addressed issues that fall under the umbrella of slavery. For example, SRI human rights and labor criteria typically screen companies for policies prohibiting forced labor, bonded labor, and child labor, according to Lauren Compere, chief administrative officer at Boston Common Asset Management. SRIs are also starting to address slavery more systematically--the Spring Symposium of the Social Investment Forum (SIF) International Working Group (IWG) at the World Bank is focusing on the modern slave trade, human trafficking, and child sex tourism.

"A wave of interest has crested recently among social investors so that we can start evaluating a set of strategic initiatives to engage investors and corporate leaders," said Prof. Batstone, a keynote speaker at the symposium. "I fully expect the SRI community to take a leadership role in addressing modern slavery and use its leverage to shape company policy so that all people can be free to work."

"The SRI community is really only starting to address human trafficking and modern slavery as a screen unto itself," Prof. Batstone told SocialFunds.com. "I imagine in the initial phase, advocacy will take the form of behind-the-scenes consultation among companies willing to address the issues, and shareholder resolutions will be filed at companies unwilling to address the issues."

Few if any global corporations directly enslave workers--supply chains are the primary locus of slavery, particularly in emerging economies and developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Slavery is pervasive in a number of different supply chains, according to Jolene Smith, executive director of Free the Slaves, who is also presenting at the IWG symposium.

"It's likely that what I'm wearing and eating today in some way contain slavery," Ms. Smith told SocialFunds.com "The amount of slavery in any given product is usually very small--we're looking at a little bit of slavery in a whole lot of products."

At the same time that slavery is practically everywhere, it is also nowhere, hiding from scrutiny far down the supply chain where raw materials originate--primarily in farm fields and mines, according to Ms. Smith.

"As SRI companies, we feel like we've had progress engaging with companies on the first tier of the supply chain--it's really getting down to the second and third tier where you find slave labor, for example in the pig iron that is being used for vehicles that Toyota is making," Ms. Compere told SocialFunds.com. "We don't have a good mechanism in place for monitoring and auditing even first or second tier suppliers, never mind reaching down to the bottom of the supply chain."

A November 2006 Bloomberg story exposed slaves in Brazil who went unpaid for months making the charcoal used to fire the pig iron that goes into cars and many other products. In December 2006, Boston Common sent Toyota a letter expressing concern over the allegations. Toyota first examined its supply chain independently, then later joined forces with the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), a collaborative effort to address these issues.

Dan Viederman, executive director of Verité, which monitors and audits labor conditions in supplier factories around the world, explains how most social auditing is inadequate to the task of uncovering hidden issues in workplaces, such as trafficking, forced labor, and child labor.

"Without gathering information from workers themselves in a secure way that provides workers with protection from retaliation and comfort that their views are being solicited seriously and sensitively, it is extremely difficult for auditors to identify these serious risks," Mr. Viederman told SocialFunds.com. "Trafficked workers, slave laborers, and children--the most vulnerable and oppressed workers--are the least likely to share information in a standard audit."

"Very few companies--maybe a handful in total--are looking at suppliers below their first or second tiers, and fewer still in the raw material or primary material suppliers," he added. "There's no reason why good quality social compliance practices can't work at those levels, but they require companies to push 'responsibility' down several levels, and the farther it gets from the global brand, the harder it is to enforce or even to devote resources to it."

Ms. Smith of Free the Slaves points to existing models--not from labor monitoring but from environmental monitoring.

"Organic cotton is a model we're considering, because it requires certification throughout the chain of custody," Ms. Smith said.

Mr. Viederman also endorses collaborative efforts by industries or groups of brands--"but sectoral efforts need to ensure that they meet highest common denominator standards rather than lowest common denominators," he said.

January 2006 saw the launch of the Athens Ethical Principles, a set of seven commitments including zero tolerance for human trafficking. Signatories include Manpower (MAN), Procter & Gamble (PG), and Microsoft (MSFT) operations in the Czech Republic.

"The Athens Principles are a major step in the right direction, and I believe they will be even stronger when they change one of their requirements," said Ms. Smith of Free the Slaves. "Right now, the Athens Principles ask businesses to urge their contractors and suppliers to be free of slavery, but don't require it."

Ms. Smith agrees with Prof. Batstone that shareowner engagement must precede screening to first give companies "the benefit of the doubt" and the opportunity "to do research on their supply chain and to join with other businesses in their industry to root out slavery at its source."

"There will come a time in a few years when it will make sense to have an investment tool called a slavery screen that rewards companies that are actively fighting slavery and divests from companies that are actively encouraging slavery," Ms. Smith said. "We're not there yet."



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Prison Slavery 101.

Lee

Colorado state supports farmers with state prison slave labor — just like Russia in 1930!
Filed under:
General
— Mister Justin @ 10:43 pm

Don’t we routinely accuse the Chinese of this?

Many migrant workers in the states have filled jobs cheaply and effectively. Now, due to tough immigration laws, it seems that Colorado state is looking to the penal system help them overcome a labor shortage as migrants flee the state.

In a pilot program run by the state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

60 cents a day is quite the wage these farmers have to pay. If the US penal system could somehow provide workers for all low-skilled jobs, you might have just found the goose that lays the golden egg AND solved your migrant problem. Unless you run out of prisoners.

16 Comments »
Unless you run out of prisoners.

With the misnamed PATRIOT ACT, that should never happen.

As JCD has stated before, with enough laws, everyone can be arrested for SOMEthing.

J/P=?

Comment by John Paradox — 3/5/2007 @ 11:50 pm

Now this is the best thing I’ve heard all day. Seriously, you will never run out of prisoners because some people are just wired that way.

It’s a win-win situation too. The prisoners are doing more than sitting in their cell , thinking about what they did — and they get some $ out of it . While the farmers will have a nice cheap labour force and not have to hire some illegals to pick the vegetables

Comment by Bryan — 3/6/2007 @ 4:24 am

I think it is sound to give a criminal something productive to do with his hands. who knows maybe it will “build character” and get them to work hard at legitimate jobs when they are released…

Comment by WokTiny — 3/6/2007 @ 5:48 am

I wonder if the only people who would ever complain about this are the civil rights wackos. (Not to be confused with legitimate civil rights proponents)

Comment by Olo Baggins of Bywater — 3/6/2007 @ 5:56 am

When you’re in jail, having a job (even one paying 60 cents a day) is considered a privilege. The downside to this is that there will be a lot of corruption involved on the institutional side. And the victims should be entitled to some of that money too.

Comment by venom monger — 3/6/2007 @ 5:57 am

1 - You got that right. And don’t forget the drug war laws - they are designed to fill the prisons with just the sort of low-risk prisoners a program like this calls for.

Comment by TJGeezer — 3/6/2007 @ 6:43 am

“And the victims should be entitled to some of that money too.”

Please. This ‘wage’ doesn’t come to fifteen dollars a month! Assuming no taxes, a victim could reap a whole $1800 in a short deaced.

Comment by Jennifer Emick — 3/6/2007 @ 7:29 am

I read a story about how they used to do something like this in Mississippi during the old south. Farmers would need extra hands during the harvests. So they’d place a call to the local sherriff. The Sherrif would then go out and arrest A few black men for things like “Loitering” or “Jay walking”, and as repayment for their crimes the men would have to help the farmers harvest the crop.

Comment by crypt — 3/6/2007 @ 8:26 am

#2 — “It’s a win-win situation too. The prisoners are doing more than sitting in their cell , thinking about what they did — and they get some $ out of it .”

60 cents a day is money? Inmates are charged $2.00/minute for phone calls, $60 for a decent pair of prison slippers, $2.00 for a bar of soap, $0.90 for a candy bar, $0.60 for a bag of Ramen noodles . . . .

Hey, what a bargain, work all day shoveling pig shit for a farmer, just so you can have a bowl of Ramen noodles before you go to bed.

Comment by Smith — 3/6/2007 @ 8:58 am

Only a liberal would argue for higher wages for criminals.

As long as the prisioners are treated humanley, then the link to the Chinese is false… and pathetic.

Comment by James Hill — 3/6/2007 @ 9:11 am

10. I have to agree. Its says Slave Labor in the Headline and goes on to state volunteers. Ahem. Even if I were paid nothing, I would volunteer to get out of a cell.

Comment by Mark — 3/6/2007 @ 9:21 am

There’ll be plenty more prisoners once they pass a ban on religious defamation.

Comment by MikeN — 3/6/2007 @ 9:51 am

YOUR KIDDING RIGHT? if your a convict, your pretty lazy as it is if you had to commit a crime to get ahead. second, its voluntary, how many low risk inmates do you know that want 12 hour work days for .60 a day when you can stay in the cell watch TV, do drugs, and someone provides food for you 3 times a day. third, the ACLU will be all over this if they force inmates to do this once the voluntary part fails. and finally, if they go thru with it, how long till you hear in the news that an inmate picking the crops in Colorado escaped, kidnapped a 10 year old blond haired blue eyed girl (other races don’t make the ratings that these types do), raped, and then killed her.

in the end, well still be back in square one.

Comment by joe — 3/6/2007 @ 10:54 am

#4, Good preemptive attack. Anyone disagreeing with you automatically becomes a wacko. I guess that is better then being compared to a slave owner. Only the US Constitution has declared that penal servitude is OK so it isn’t slavery.

#13, joe, convincing post.

Comment by Mr. Fusion — 3/6/2007 @ 1:16 pm

I used to teach in a Women’s prison, and thought I point out a few things.
1. Every prisoner is given an opportunity to do some type of work or education for money. It is considered a privilege, which means if you misbehave it is taken away from you. It is surprisingly effective.

2. Back in 1996 the prevailing wage was 50 cents a day. People could earn $13.00 a month. Top of the line pay, total that anyone could earn was generally $39.00 a month.

3. There are tiers of jobs, some pay a little more (not much), but people can get promoted. So your first job might not be fun, but if you behave, in time (and in prison you have a lot of time) you work up to a better job. You generally move from menial to semi-skilled or office to to skilled/tech oriented. Some inmates can learn trades that make them employable upon release (some do get out someday).

4. Prisoners can also take high school and college classes for credit, and get paid. Education has an even higher privilege level–you get tossed out for more minor offenses. I enjoyed teaching prisoners because they were very motivated to learn. I never feared for my life either.

5. Why pay them at all? Some prisoners (more than you realize) have no one to come for them, send them money, visit, provide stuff. It’s a larger number than you expect. Most states don’t permit the prison to buy personal items for prisoners (e.g. tampons for women), so how else to get it to them? Do you think prison is better off if inmates don;’t shampoo or wash? Thje amount is kept low to keep prisoners from having too much discretionary income (which leads to problems–when someone comes in who has money to spend, they get hustled, threatened, or they use it buy “services”.

6. The inmate may get paid 60 cents for picking vegetables in Colorado, but the farmer will pay a lot mroe than that, the difference goes to pay for the transportation, the guards, overhead, etc. Farmers will probably still want to hire non-prisoners.

7. Final thought–It’s easy to trash prisoners, but they are still human beings, and deserve some dignity. The smart guards know that, and have fewer discipline problems. I’m considered a conservative, but one thing I learned over teaching in a prison for 7 years is that most prisoners are weak, not evil. If you knew how many have untreated addictions, you realize prison isn’t cost effective. Helping them get straight give them a chance (which some take) to become productive upon release.

Comment by Rex Jannney — 3/6/2007 @ 7:04 pm

#15, Very well thought out and intelligent post. I learned a bit from it.

My understanding though is that most men’s prisons do not have the same luxury as what you allude to in your Women’s Prison. I wish it were so because I believe recidivism can be substantially reduced by giving those in prison rehabilitation instead of only punishment. That requires social workers and teachers. It requires classrooms and educational equipment.

An especially good acknowledgment for your point #7. Unfortunately it will take one occurrence, as joe pointed out in #13, to halt any rehabilitation. A 99% success rate won’t be good enough with prisoners out in society.

Comment by Mr. Fusion — 3/7/2007 @ 7:52 am



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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(and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list.

http://prisonslaveryebook.blogspot.com


To the Honorable Members of Congress Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters.

THIS CAN HELP GET VOTES TO GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!

CONTENTION/ARGUMENT: The Iraq War Violates the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution.

The War in Iraq is in violation of the Thirteenth (13th) Amendment of the United States Constitution (1865). That’s the amendment we were taught abolished chattel slavery after the Civil War in America (1860-1865).

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.

Focus is on the fact that the slave punishments of tortures, renditions, imprisonments, murders, hangings, maiming of men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan are slave punishments – without being “DULY CONVICTED, and those punishments have been committed…any place subject to their (US) jurisdiction”. And, absolutely, for the past four years the United States Executive office has gained and maintained jurisdiction in Iraq.
The massive expansion of prison constructions in Iraq exposes the fact that Iraqi imprisonment was far lower (4,000 to 10,000 prisoners) under Saddam Hussein; and is now over 16,000 prisoners under George Bush. That is a direct expansion of slave punishments within Iraq, but without being DULY CONVICTED.

This violation commits the grievous expansion of slave territory, it tramples on the Thirteenth Amendment, and it makes all of us tax-paying shareholders in slavery. A vote to bring our troops home is a vote to stop, to halt this expansion of slave territory, and a vote to continue in Iraq is a vote for slavery. Only slave masters and liberals will support the continued expansion of this “peculiar institution” by this once great and honorable nation.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Notes:

Proposed UN Petition:


UNITED NATIONS PETITION TO ABOLISH PRISON “SLAVERY…AS A PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME…
WITHIN THE UNITED STATES, OR ANY PLACE SUBJECT TO THEIR
JURISDICTION”.

I hereby sign this United Nations Petition to Abolition Prison Slavery in support of changing the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution so as to remove the offensive exception for “slavery…as a punishment for crime…in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”; with the return of citizenship, labor and human rights for all.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 4:
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave
trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”.

Article 5:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

Article 23:
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (1865)

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT AS A PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME
WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CONVICTED, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.

So as to read:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_____________________ __________________________ _________________ ________ _____ ____________
Name Address email City State ZIP


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Respectfully Submitted,
Lee Wood
Committee to Abolish Prison Slavery (CAPS)
prisonslavery@yahoo.com

http://prisonslaveryebook.blogspot.com


To the Honorable Members of Congress Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters.

THIS CAN HELP GET VOTES TO GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!

CONTENTION/ARGUMENT: The Iraq War Violates the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution.

The War in Iraq is in violation of the Thirteenth (13th) Amendment of the United States Constitution (1865). That’s the amendment we were taught abolished chattel slavery after the Civil War in America (1860-1865).

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.

Focus is on the fact that the slave punishments of tortures, renditions, imprisonments, murders, hangings, maiming of men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan are slave punishments – without being “DULY CONVICTED, and those punishments have been committed…any place subject to their (US) jurisdiction”. And, absolutely, for the past four years the United States Executive office has gained and maintained jurisdiction in Iraq.
The massive expansion of prison constructions in Iraq exposes the fact that Iraqi imprisonment was far lower (4,000 to 10,000 prisoners) under Saddam Hussein; and is now over 16,000 prisoners under George Bush. That is a direct expansion of slave punishments within Iraq, but without being DULY CONVICTED.

This violation commits the grievous expansion of slave territory, it tramples on the Thirteenth Amendment, and it makes all of us tax-paying shareholders in slavery. A vote to bring our troops home is a vote to stop, to halt this expansion of slave territory, and a vote to continue in Iraq is a vote for slavery. Only slave masters and liberals will support the continued expansion of this “peculiar institution” by this once great and honorable nation.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Notes:

Proposed UN Petition:


UNITED NATIONS PETITION TO ABOLISH PRISON “SLAVERY…AS A PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME…
WITHIN THE UNITED STATES, OR ANY PLACE SUBJECT TO THEIR
JURISDICTION”.

I hereby sign this United Nations Petition to Abolition Prison Slavery in support of changing the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution so as to remove the offensive exception for “slavery…as a punishment for crime…in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”; with the return of citizenship, labor and human rights for all.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 4:
“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave
trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”.

Article 5:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

Article 23:
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (1865)

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT AS A PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME
WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CONVICTED, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”.

So as to read:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_____________________ __________________________ _________________ ________ _____ ____________
Name Address email City State ZIP


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Respectfully Submitted,
Lee Wood
Committee to Abolish Prison Slavery (CAPS)
prisonslavery@yahoo.com