BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle

[kpete]

Source: The Nation

BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle

In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for work? The outfits disappeared overnight.

Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why black people were over-represented in "the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins."

Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle

[SPedigrees]

1. Just when you think BP can't possibly

come up with any more ways to f*** over the inhabitants of the Gulf coastline, they do!

[toppertwot]

6. SLAVE LABOR FROM PRISONS IS VERY POPULAR

with corporate fascists in the USA, and has been for a long long time! No medical costs, no liability, no unions, and prisoners get a dollar or two every day to spend as they please at the prison company store. A dream come true for cheap labor Republicans. The USA has 5% of the world population and 25% of the world prison population. Those drug laws sure do come in handy to populate the prisons with slave labor. In fact, Noam Chomsky has written about this.

[valerief]

10. Slave labor is why there are so many US prisons. nt

[Scuba]

14. Slave labor socializes the costs of healthcare, etc.....

.... and the pot laws keep the prisons full of slaves.

[woodsprite]

2. After all, BP execs can more closely relate to criminals than

average, concerned, middle-class members of society.

[BolivarianHero]

3. This is why people who support prison labour are morons...

Anybody who can think critically should have little trouble realising that this is the dire consequence.

[dipsydoodle]

4. I'd be surprised

if BP was employing thm direct - more likely a contractor of some description.

Exactly how, and by that I don't mean more or less , does BP get a tax write off on this ?

[rocktivity]

5. VERY cost effective

Not only can they pay prisoners less than unemployed local civilians, they also save money on their dying from any occupational hazards.

:eyes:
rocktivity

[Uncle Joe]

7. And this is the problem for the nation, hard work isn't give it's due value.

Scott Rojas of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission suggests that for all the work to be done, finding local labor to do oil-spill cleanup jobs is trickier than it would seem. "These are really hard, and really low-paid jobs—I know agencies have put effort into finding locals to do the work. But they may not always have an easy time of it. As for reports of inmates being hired, I can't confirm or deny. The people down in Grand Isle swear to it, but you're going to have to talk to them."

Why is such hard, hazardous work; low paying?

Because BP and/or it's contractors have determined it to be, they're purposely aiming to use for profit virtual slave/prison labor and the government with it's tax breaks is supporting this policy.

This is just one more reason as to why the concept of for profit prisons to be immoral, bordering on evil.

This policy not only damages the prisoners, it damages the "free" community as well in multiple ways.

Thanks for thread, kpete.

[ozymandius]

8. What a bunch of fucking ghouls.

If BP intends to destroy any future goodwill then they are doing an exceptional job.

[PJPhreak]

9. So, clean up workers get $0.17 cents an hour,with no legal...

Recourse if they get sick or suffer from exposure to toxic shit years down the road.

Sorry BP,you fuckers need to go,outta North America and outta business!

[defendandprotect]

11. This should be illegal -- it's slavery --

and I guess we've long realized that's the underlying reason for prisons --!!

[SoapBox]

12. Yup! It sure is slavery.

...this country is a mess...

[JoeyT]

13. I predicted this was coming before cleanup even started.

Prison labor is quite popular among neocons/neoliberals. It has all the benefits of slavery with none of the costs.
You don't have to make the area safe in any way. If one loses a leg, arm, or hand* you just send him back and they send you a replacement. The ones that are injured or sick can't readily sue you. If they do sue, it'll be after they get out of prison which could be decades down the road, and at best they might be able to sue the prison or the contracting company that put them there. (And they still aren't going to win.) Plus if they do win they'll have to come up with lawyer money while you run through years of appeals, so that's another roadblock. Unlike regular employees, they can't get pissed off about coverups, quit, and run to the media. If they quit, they're going right back to prison where any outside communication can be intercepted. No matter how much you abuse them there's nothing they can do about it.

The non-existent wages are actually pretty far down on the list of reasons they use prisoners. And not real high on the list that people want to crush unions and drive down wages here. The extra money every quarter is nice, but it pales in comparison to having an already beaten down group that you can treat like shit and they have no choice but to thank you for it and ask for more.


*I worked at a place where this happened when I was sixteen. Work release guy got his hand cut off with a bandsaw when the blade broke and there was no guard to stop it. They fired him and got a new guy. He was just SOL. That was my last day too. Both at that company and as a libertarian.