Though you might not know it to look at mainstream news outlets, the largest prison strike in US history is currently in its second week. On the 45th anniversary of the Attica Uprising, prisoners at an estimated 40 facilities in at least 24 states have refused to report to their prison jobs in order to draw attention to a range of grievances.
In particular, prisoners are demonstrating against the exploitative conditions that keep them working for slave wages — literally. The thirteenth amendment of the US Constitution outlawed slavery in most cases, but it continues to allow slavery “as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
From a 2014 article in the American Prospect:
Employment law is supposed to rely on a three-pronged test to determine whether two people are engaged in an employee-employer relationship: Are they producing something of value? Are they getting paid for their work? Do they have a supervisor telling them what to do? Prison jobs meet all three criteria. “The puzzle,” Zatz says, “is the way in which courts have a strong instinct: No, there’s something different here. And then they run around in circles trying to figure out what that something different is.”
The something different is a moral judgment: Inmate workers are seen as less deserving of a decent job or a competitive wage. The courts, in this sense, are reflecting public sentiment. It’s why the idea that “law-abiding citizens … need jobs worse than inmates” (in the words of one recent Nevada editorial page) resonates the way it does. It’s the same reason people with felony convictions have such a hard time finding a job, why in so many states they’re barred from voting, why a criminal record can prevent you from living in public housing or securing student loans, and why political candidates have long won more votes with punitive rhetoric than with compassion or level-headed talk of prevention. In America, breaking the law has become more than just an occasion to be punished or even rehabilitated. It has become a permanent mark of who you are and what our country thinks you’re entitled to earn.
It’s worth reading through the full piece, here.
