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{"id":7834,"date":"2011-03-17T04:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.occasionalplanet.org\/?p=7834"},"modified":"2011-03-12T09:50:53","modified_gmt":"2011-03-12T15:50:53","slug":"where-are-the-manufacturing-jobs-in-america-try-our-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occasionalplanet.org\/2011\/03\/17\/where-are-the-manufacturing-jobs-in-america-try-our-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the manufacturing jobs in America? Try our prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are currently 14.9 million unemployed Americans. Now imagine if there were a cache of jobs out there, unskilled jobs that anyone needing work could just pick up and do. Jobs like assembling office furniture, making mattresses, sewing work uniforms together, and screen printing tee shirts. Jobs that created tangible things and would have that \u201cMade in America\u201d sticker. What if I told you these jobs existed, but you couldn\u2019t have them? It\u2019s true. Unless you\u2019re incarcerated, these jobs are off limits.<\/p>\n

Meet UNICOR<\/a>, the federally owned, corporation friendly, American inmate employing, manufacturing hub. Using slogans like \u201cFactories with fences\u201d and \u201cWhen the prisoners work, so does the system\u201d, UNICOR has the mission to \u201cemploy and provide job skills training to the greatest number of inmates confined and to contribute to the safety of prisons by keeping its inhabitants constructively occupied.\u201d Which it does by running about 100 factories in at least 30 states.<\/p>\n

Corporations love UNICOR. Businesses like McDonalds (uniforms), Victoria\u2019s Secret (lingerie), Eddie Bauer (wooden rocking horse assembly), Kmart (jeans), Dell (computer recycling), Honda (car parts until the United Auto Workers intervened), and even the U.S. Army (body armor, F-16 jet parts) have all used inmate factories. Where else in America can you legally pay workers $0.23- $1.15<\/a> per hour? Most factories also run 24 hours a day to deal with lower productivity levels. (The inmates just aren\u2019t as highly motivated as other factory employees.) Inmate employees of UNICOR are also exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and as an added bonus you don\u2019t have to worry about OSHA stepping in. Until 2004, there were no OSHA factory inspections. Even now because the factories are located in prisons OSHA can\u2019t just pop by for surprise inspections. (Due to a string of lawsuits involving UNICOR\u2019s recycling programs<\/a>, that may be changing.) It\u2019s no wonder that in 2010 net sales for UNICOR was $889 million.<\/p>\n

UNICOR isn\u2019t without its critics though. Last year the Army recalled 44,000 protective helmets<\/a> manufactured by UNICOR for shoddy quality. (In response, they stopped making helmets.) Despite this the U.S. Army still (sometimes using no bid contracts<\/a>) buys protective gear from them and then turns around and distributes it to other countries like Kuwait and Pakistan. Other quality control problems have been found with electrical wire, hazardous waste recycling, desks, chairs, laundry services, industrial metal bolts, and electrical switches.<\/p>\n

Other complaints include:<\/p>\n