WorkingWor king ttoo EExtendx ten d D Democracyemocracy ttoo All VolumeVlVolume 4N44,, NNumberum ber 5 MayMay 20152015 BOYCOTT CORPORATIONS THAT FEED ON PRISONS By Chris Hedges Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison missary companies, and against the dozens ll attempts to reform mass incar- Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the of corporations that exploit prison labor. ceration through the traditional formerly incarcerated, their families and The boycotts will target food and mer- Amechanisms of electoral politics, religious leaders. “Mass incarceration is chandise vendors, construction companies, the courts and state and federal legisla- the most important civil rights issue of our laundry services, uniforms companies, tures are useless. Corporations, which have day. And it is time for communities of faith prison equipment vendors, cafeteria servic- turned mass incarceration into a huge rev- to stand with poor people, mostly of color, es, manufacturers of pepper spray, body ar- enue stream and which have unchecked po- who are unfairly exploited and abused. We mor and the array of medieval instruments litical and economic power, have no inten- must halt human rights violations against used for the physical control of prisoners, tion of diminishing their profi ts. And in a the poor that grow more pronounced each and a host of other contractors that profi t system where money has replaced the vote, year,” Caley said here. He and other prison from mass incarceration. The movement where corporate lobbyists write legislation reform leaders spoke Saturday at the Elm- will also call on institutions, especially and the laws, where chronic unemployment wood Presbyterian Church. churches and universities, to divest from and underemployment, along with inad- corporations that use prison labor. equate public transportation, sever people “All the companies that The campaign, led by the Interfaith Pris- in marginal communities from jobs, and use prison labor have to on Coalition, will include a call to pay all where the courts are a wholly owned sub- be boycotted. prisoners at least the prevailing minimum sidiary of the corporate state, this demands wage of the state in which they are held. a sustained, nationwide revolt. “We have to shut down the system,” said (New Jersey’s minimum wage is $8.38 an “Organizing boycotts, work stoppages Gale Muhammad, another speaker and the hour.) Wages inside prisons have remained inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners founder and CEO of Women Who Never stagnant and in real terms have declined and their families to pay into the accounts of Give Up. “All the companies that use pris- over the past three decades. A prisoner in phone companies and commissary compa- on labor have to be boycotted. And we can’t New Jersey makes, on average, $1.20 for nies is the only weapon we have left,” said stop there. We have to boycott the vend- eight hours of work, or about $28 a month. ing machines in the prisons and the phone Those incarcerated in for-profi t prisons companies. We have to stop spending our earn as little as 17 cents an hour. Over a CONTENTS money. Until we hit them in the pocket they similar period, phone and commissary cor- Boycott Prison Profiteers .........1 won’t listen.” porations have increased fees and charges Former prisoners and prisoners’ rela- often by more than 100 percent. Small Notices ...........................3 tives—suffering along with the incarcer- There are nearly 40 states that allow ated under the weight of one of the most private corporations to exploit prison la- UN Banned From US Prisons ..4 exploitative, physically abusive and larg- bor. And prison administrators throughout est prison systems in the world, frustrated the country are lobbying corporations that Mothers Stage Hunger Strike...5 and enraged by the walls that corporations have sweatshops overseas, trying to lure have set in place to stymie rational judicial them into the prisons with guarantees of Can't Live by Bread Alone ........7 reform—joined human rights advocates at even cheaper labor and a total absence of the church to organize state and nationwide organizing or coordinated protest. Little Guantanamo’ Lawsuit ......8 boycotts inside and outside prisons. These Corporations currently exploiting prison boycotts, they said, will be directed against labor include Abbott Laboratories, AT&T, S.F. Jail Cons Forced to Fight ..9 the private phone, money transfer and com- AutoZone, Bank of America, Bayer, Berk- shire Hathaway, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chev- charges prisoners double what items cost midst.” ron, the former Chrysler Group, Costco outside prison walls, makes $41 million a She called on the audience to “speak dif- Wholesale, John Deere, Eddie Bauer, Eli year in profi t. All of these companies have fi cult and unpopular truths,” not to avoid Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fruit of the Loom, GEI- to be targeted. “the racial dimensions or the profound CO, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, It will be a long and hard battle. It will moral questions for purposes of expedien- Hoffmann-La Roche, International Paper, require tremendous sacrifi ces from those cy” and not to seek “justice on the cheap.” JanSport, Johnson & Johnson, Kmart, who have loved ones who are incarcerated “We can and we must build a movement, Koch Industries, Mary Kay, McDonald’s, and from the 2.3 million locked in cages and not only [about] mass incarceration Merck, Microsoft, Motorola, Nintendo, in the United States’ vast archipelagos of and mass deportation, but a broad-based Pfi zer, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, prisons. It will require those on the out- radical, human rights movement that ends Sarah Lee, Sears, Shell, Sprint, Starbucks, side to boycott corporations that use prison once and for all our history’s cycle of creat- State Farm Insurance, United Airlines, labor and corporations that gouge prison- ing caste-like systems in America, a move- UPS, Verizon, Victoria’s Secret, Wal-Mart ers and their families. It will require us to ment for education, not incarceration, for and Wendy’s. build networks to support prisoners when jobs, not jails, a movement to end all forms Prisons in America are a hugely profi t- they begin, as they must, to carry out work of legal discrimination against people re- able business. And since profi t is the only stoppages to demand the minimum wage. leased from prison, discrimination that language the involved corporations know Building a movement is our only hope. denies them basic human rights to work, how to speak, we will have to speak to Michelle Alexander, the author of “The to shelter, to food, a movement for vot- them in the language they understand. In New Jim Crow,” is outspoken about the ing rights for all, including those behind New Jersey the fi rst boycott will be direct- imperative for organizing to fi ght back. In bars … a movement that will end the war ed against Global Tel Link, a private phone a speech at Union Theological Seminary in on drugs, once and for all, and shift to a company that charges prisoners and their New York City in March she told her au- public health model dealing with drug ad- families exorbitant rates and that has a mo- dience: “Jesus taught that he who is with- diction and drug abuse, a movement that nopoly. Organizers at the Saturday event, out sin should cast the fi rst stone. Well, we will stand up to the police unions and trans- including Gale Muhammad, called on have become a nation of stone throwers. form the police itself from warriors into prisoners and families to stop paying into And in this era of mass incarceration it is peace offi cers directly accountable to the Global Tel Link accounts and boycott the not enough to drop your stone. We have to communities they serve, a movement that prison phone service. She urged families be willing to catch the stones raining down will ensure that every dollar saved from and prisoners to write letters to each oth- on the most vulnerable. And we must be ending the wars that have been declared er until the company’s phone rates match willing to stand up to the stone throwers on poor communities of color, the wars on those paid by the wider society. and disarm them.” crime and drugs, will be invested back into “Prisoner telephone rates in New Jersey these communities, the communities most are some of the highest in the country,” Global Tel Link charges harmed, meaningful reparations and justice Caley said. “Global Tel Link charges pris- $4.95 for a 15-minute reinvestment, a movement that abandons oners and their families $4.95 for a 15-min- phone call our purely punitive approach to dealing ute phone call, which is about two and a with violence and violent crimes and em- half times the national average for local “I believe we now fi nd ourselves at a fork braces a more restorative and rehabilitative inmate calling services.” in the road,” she went on. “We can continue approach … a movement that is rooted in Prison phone services are a $1.2-billion- down the road most traveled of business the dignity and humanity of us all, no mat- a-year industry. Prisoners outside New Jer- and politics as usual, the path of reform- ter who we are, where we come from or sey are charged by Global Tel Link, which ing our political institutions here and there, what we may have done.” makes about $500 million a year, as much the path Dr. King was determined to leave At Saturday’s gathering in Newark, as $17 for a 15-minute phone call. A call behind, or we can choose a different path, among the roughly 100 participants were of that duration outside a prison would cost the rocky, dangerous path that comes with- leading advocates for prison reform such as about $2.