City Council yanks football
Oct 16, 2008 10:57
Before you
trundle off to attend a City Council meeting or
hearing, call first. The Open Meeting Law forces the
City Council to post notice when these events are
scheduled, but not to notify people if they are
cancelled. So this morning I arrived at City Hall for
a scheduled hearing, testimony prepared, only to be
told it is cancelled. Why was it cancelled? An
invited speaker cancelled out -- YESTERDAY MORNING.
But not to worry, they told me -- the cancellation is
being posted RIGHT NOW. I got an e-mail about it just
as I arrived back home -- and that's only because I
have signed up on the receptionist's e-notice list.
You ordinary mortals got nothing. Your tax dollars at
work.
The hearing was to be about city and state agencies using prison labor at slave wages, a subject I researched for one of my South End News columns a couple of years ago. Here it is:
City Streets
Fair labor practices for prison inmates
by Shirley Kressel
Hanging on the walls of City Hall and of state government buildings is a poster encouraging public officials to order supplies from a cheap source, free from bidding requirements. No bids are required because it is a transaction between government agencies. The source is MassCor (Massachusetts Correctional Industries). The products — which range from bumper stickers, street signs, official vehicle decals, clothing, office and cleaning supplies to furniture, license plates, business cards and U.S. flags — are made by prison inmates.
MassCor is expanding and diversifying. Last year, the Boston Globe reported that MassCor wanted to increase employment from three percent of the prison population to 15 to 25 percent, and that its projected revenues for fiscal 2005 were $7.5 million — up $200,000 from 2004. Director James F. Karr is quoted, half-jokingly: ''Maybe we'll be selling [MassCor jeans] on Newbury Street." (It’s possible; Oregon’s inmates produce a huge line of clothing labeled “Prison Blues.&rdquo
The City of Boston has been buying MassCor products for many years, according to the purchasing department. Between 2002 and 2005 the City bought $27,000 worth of floor cleaners, dust pans, recycling bins, beds, mattresses (some for jail prisoners) and decals for law-enforcement vehicles. Since they aren’t bid, the savings to the City are not known, but it’s certain to be substantial.
The chronically under-funded State Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) uses prison laborers, according to a recent report by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute, because the workers are available at minimal cost. Some of this work is for parks within Boston. And the Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC), a nonprofit purchasing association which includes many educational and cultural institutions, both private and public (e.g., UMass, and Roxbury and Bunker Hill Community Colleges), has numerous contracts with MassCor.
Productive work for prison inmates seems like a good idea; they spend their time usefully, learn skills and work habits, earn money for use and for saving, and provide some public service. These jobs are sought by inmates, who have few alternative ways to spend their time. But we have to be careful to see the big picture.
Although some states pay minimum or prevailing wage, inmates at MassCor are paid, according to the Globe story, between 50 cents and one dollar an hour. Their low-priced products may displace those of private industries paying living wages, health insurance and retirement benefits. And they may undermine union labor; a 1998 resolution by AFSCME, AFL-CIO encouraged programs that train inmates for work after their release, but opposed programs “not specifically approved by the affected labor organization, that do not pay the prevailing wage for that occupation in the state, or that use inmates to displace or adversely impact free workers” and use of inmate labor that “keeps wages at a sub-living wage level, and denies benefits and training to the unemployed or underemployed law abiding citizens.” AFSCME also warns against use of inmate labor for private industries as an alternative to hiring workers.
We know that people of color are disproportionately involved in the prison system. According to a 2004 Boston Foundation report, African-Americans and Latinos each make up 27 percent of those in prison even though they are five and seven percent of the population, respectively. This is due, in large part, to uneven enforcement of drug laws across race lines. The Sentencing Project, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for alternatives to incarceration, reported in 1995 that one in three black men in their twenties have some involvement with the criminal justice system, and that African-Americans constitute 13 percent of all monthly drug users, but represent 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted on drug charges and 74 percent of those serving time for drug-related offenses.
We should be on guard against any inequities carried out in the name of prisoners’ welfare or budget efficiencies – especially because Boston has a majority population of color. City Council should have a hearing on this issue, to learn about uses of prison labor by the City or within the city, and about the benefits for the inmates. Let’s be sure we do not pit minority and other poor people on the inside against their brothers on the outside.
In the big picture, we must reform the criminal justice system to treat people of color, and poor people, as we treat middle-class whites — or vice versa. Immediately, we should be sure the injury is not compounded by programs that claim to help them, and to help our City’s bottom line.
The hearing was to be about city and state agencies using prison labor at slave wages, a subject I researched for one of my South End News columns a couple of years ago. Here it is:
City Streets
Fair labor practices for prison inmates
by Shirley Kressel
Hanging on the walls of City Hall and of state government buildings is a poster encouraging public officials to order supplies from a cheap source, free from bidding requirements. No bids are required because it is a transaction between government agencies. The source is MassCor (Massachusetts Correctional Industries). The products — which range from bumper stickers, street signs, official vehicle decals, clothing, office and cleaning supplies to furniture, license plates, business cards and U.S. flags — are made by prison inmates.
MassCor is expanding and diversifying. Last year, the Boston Globe reported that MassCor wanted to increase employment from three percent of the prison population to 15 to 25 percent, and that its projected revenues for fiscal 2005 were $7.5 million — up $200,000 from 2004. Director James F. Karr is quoted, half-jokingly: ''Maybe we'll be selling [MassCor jeans] on Newbury Street." (It’s possible; Oregon’s inmates produce a huge line of clothing labeled “Prison Blues.&rdquo
The City of Boston has been buying MassCor products for many years, according to the purchasing department. Between 2002 and 2005 the City bought $27,000 worth of floor cleaners, dust pans, recycling bins, beds, mattresses (some for jail prisoners) and decals for law-enforcement vehicles. Since they aren’t bid, the savings to the City are not known, but it’s certain to be substantial.
The chronically under-funded State Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) uses prison laborers, according to a recent report by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute, because the workers are available at minimal cost. Some of this work is for parks within Boston. And the Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC), a nonprofit purchasing association which includes many educational and cultural institutions, both private and public (e.g., UMass, and Roxbury and Bunker Hill Community Colleges), has numerous contracts with MassCor.
Productive work for prison inmates seems like a good idea; they spend their time usefully, learn skills and work habits, earn money for use and for saving, and provide some public service. These jobs are sought by inmates, who have few alternative ways to spend their time. But we have to be careful to see the big picture.
Although some states pay minimum or prevailing wage, inmates at MassCor are paid, according to the Globe story, between 50 cents and one dollar an hour. Their low-priced products may displace those of private industries paying living wages, health insurance and retirement benefits. And they may undermine union labor; a 1998 resolution by AFSCME, AFL-CIO encouraged programs that train inmates for work after their release, but opposed programs “not specifically approved by the affected labor organization, that do not pay the prevailing wage for that occupation in the state, or that use inmates to displace or adversely impact free workers” and use of inmate labor that “keeps wages at a sub-living wage level, and denies benefits and training to the unemployed or underemployed law abiding citizens.” AFSCME also warns against use of inmate labor for private industries as an alternative to hiring workers.
We know that people of color are disproportionately involved in the prison system. According to a 2004 Boston Foundation report, African-Americans and Latinos each make up 27 percent of those in prison even though they are five and seven percent of the population, respectively. This is due, in large part, to uneven enforcement of drug laws across race lines. The Sentencing Project, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for alternatives to incarceration, reported in 1995 that one in three black men in their twenties have some involvement with the criminal justice system, and that African-Americans constitute 13 percent of all monthly drug users, but represent 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted on drug charges and 74 percent of those serving time for drug-related offenses.
We should be on guard against any inequities carried out in the name of prisoners’ welfare or budget efficiencies – especially because Boston has a majority population of color. City Council should have a hearing on this issue, to learn about uses of prison labor by the City or within the city, and about the benefits for the inmates. Let’s be sure we do not pit minority and other poor people on the inside against their brothers on the outside.
In the big picture, we must reform the criminal justice system to treat people of color, and poor people, as we treat middle-class whites — or vice versa. Immediately, we should be sure the injury is not compounded by programs that claim to help them, and to help our City’s bottom line.
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