Inmate labor used to make recalled helmets

[unhappycamper]

Inmate labor used to make recalled helmets
By Kent Mallett - The (Newark, Ohio) Advocate
Posted : Thursday May 27, 2010 21:07:00 EDT

HEBRON, Ohio — The combat helmets made by Hebron-based ArmorSource and recalled by the Army earlier this month were made by a Texas subcontractor that uses federal inmates to do its work.

The Army and ArmorSource confirmed to The Advocate that UNICOR, also called Federal Prison Industries, manufactured all of the 102,000 helmets for the ArmorSource contract with the Army.

The helmets, produced between August 2007 and November 2009, were manufactured at UNICOR’s facility in Beaumont, Texas, where a federal prison is located.

The recall of 44,000 ArmorSource helmets, announced May 14, followed Army testing of the helmets’ ability to withstand gunshots. The recall also came after the Army learned of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into ArmorSource.

“A couple weeks before the Department of Justice alert, we were already noticing some issues with ArmorSource helmets,” Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings said.

[icnorth]

1. Penitentiaries, build em bigger

and build em higher, the corporate counter to Asian sweat shops.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Union Busting 101

The war on drugs is a war on freedom.

[TexasObserver]

3. Cheap prison labor makes minimum wage look like Wall Street money.

This seedy industry of imprisoning people has spawned an army of cheap prison laborers, whose subbed out efforts are now displacing jobs in the private sector by the thousands.

[Bitwit1234]

4. I thought the original company was owned by Israel

Rabinex. It was then sold to Armor Source.