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

[Iwillnevergiveup]

Article by Abe Louise Young

##snip##

"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."

There are no words.

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

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm sure Bobby Jindal will get right on this, right?

Er, maybe not.

:mad:

[Iwillnevergiveup]

2. Every frickin' day

there's something horrendous in the news about BP. These poor bastards are working 12-hour days, 6 days a week. Sickness and possible early deaths will be their ultimate rewards.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

3. BP = Buried Prematurely n/t

[Bobbieo]

5. Are they destined to die like the poor creatures caught in the spill?

Not the first time this has happened in this country - look at the Navajos and Uranium mining radioactive poisonings.

[SydneyDundee]

4. It's work, right?

The clean-up has to commence and be carried out as quickly as possible surely?....it's gotta be done by someone!

[Iwillnevergiveup]

6. You're kidding, right?

This is very toxic work which could kill them and for which they're paid very little. Did you read the article?

Uh, welcome to DU I guess.

[SydneyDundee]

8. Thank you for the welcome (Iwillnevergiveup)......

I did read the article.....I hope I haven't confused matters...I neither condone nor condemn the use of prison labour for this..I merely point out that this work will need to be done by someone, at some time and that the clean-up is necessary and should be done as quickly and safely as possible.......I didn't think it needed spelling out, that it had to be done as safely as possible, with the best form of health and safety protection possible, irrespective of the social class or economic price paid to the worker....

However, for the chap who chose to "welcome" me so profanely, let me be clear my friend....the work has to be done really, really, safely and the workers being deployed must be protected with the best possible protective gear and practices.....there, now is that better?

[Name removed]

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[Dr.Phool]

9. So go get a job.

Hey, cotton-picking had to be done by someone too. A cheap labor rates.

[SydneyDundee]

10. I already have one......

so no need.....and yes cotton did/does need to be picked also.....anyway back to the issue I guess you are focussing on...... I agree that commercial companies, even in emergencies, will always look to keep their labour costs down, hence BP looking to use prison labour......question, do the prisoners get a choice to do the work or are they just hired out by the state or federal prison authorities?...apologies for my lack of knowledge on this matter!

[Dr.Phool]

12. They use Trustees, classified security risk, minimum one. The lowest.

If they're paid at all, it's about 15-40 cents per hour. Since it's La, I'll assume the lower range. In some states, they can earn one or two days "good time" per month that they worked, which will reduce their sentence by the accumulated good time.

Some crooked wardens, and this was prevalent in the South for many years, would rent out inmate labor to private contractors. Pay the inmates pennies and pocket the rest.

Check out a book called "God of the Rodeo". See how inmates from the city, who had never as much as been to a petting zoo in their lives, were clamoring to ride bulls, broncos, and sit at a table and play chicken with a charging bull, all to win a $100 commissary ticket. This was an annual event in a Louisiana prison to benefit the guards and their families.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

13. Sounds like something out of "Papillion" n/t

[SydneyDundee]

16. Sounds awful and something any free and liberal society would be ashamed of.....

...a penal system that exploits worse than the society it serves....!

[alarimer]

14. It should be done by people who have been put out of work by the spill

not by inmates who don't get paid anything anyway.

They are essentially slave labor for BP. They pay them next to nothing and get paid by the government for doing so.

[silversol]

11. It just makes you wonder

you can do a ten minute Google search and see oil companies put profit over safety and profit over health and profit over environment. A ban on deep water drilling was in place for 41 years what kind of idiot would repeal it?

[SydneyDundee]

15. I guess they only "get away with"...what big government allows or fails to regulate?

...Not that this excuses companies, like BP or any other multi-national, as I believe they are cut from the same DNA, seems even more worrying that these conditions of poor saftey compromised for profit is done with government complicitness..(I think that's a word!)....can't see any answer so long as the west polotical system is based on parties with economic interests aligned to business..