China "Slave" labor, page 1

"Fateful decisions made by China’s leaders, limiting births to mostly males and forbidding farmers to tap shrinking reservoirs diverted to smog-choked cities could lead to internal strife and foreign conquest as this economic powerhouse reaches the limits of explosive growth. But US consumers continue to fund China’s military modernization, even as they erode their own economy and employment at home. Even worse, Wal-Mart shoppers are supporting forced labor camps where the healthiest inmates are executed for “organ harvesting”. Wal-Mart also buys heavily from slave labor manufacturing zones, where women workers are typically paid 3 cents an hour or less for 70 to 90-hour work weeks. See smuggled photos here. And please don’t buy any products “Made In China”."

www.willthomas.net...

Where is the UN and Amnesty on the abusive human rights in China? Where is the US media?

Here is the real issue................

US SHOPPERS ARM CHINA
War with the USA is “inevitable,” Red China’s Defense Minister, Chi Haotian told Hong Kong's Cheng Ming newspaper. "We cannot avoid it," he said. "Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war."

According to right-wing Rand researchers, China's military is narrowing its technology gap with the US armed forces, using US technology transfers to prepare for a future war with the US. “And the really sad and ironic part is that the American people are paying for their own demise with each and every purchase of merchandise “Made in China,” says Internet commentator Jim Welch....

We’ve come along way baby: no longer is prison labor / rehabilitation just making brooms and punching license plates.

Prison labor on the rise in US

By Alan Whyte and Jamie Baker

Snip

There are presently 80,000 inmates in the US employed in commercial activity, some earning as little as 21 cents an hour. The US government program Federal Prison Industries (FPI) currently employs 21,000 inmates, an increase of 14 percent in the last two years alone. FPI inmates make a wide variety of products—such as clothing, file cabinets, electronic equipment, and military helmets—which are sold to federal agencies and private companies. FPI sales are $600 million annually and rising, with over $37 million in profits.
In addition, during the last 20 years more than 30 states have passed laws permitting the use of convict labor by commercial enterprises. These programs now exist in 36 states.
Prisoners now manufacture everything from blue jeans, to auto parts, to electronics and furniture. Honda has paid inmates $2 an hour for doing the same work an auto worker would get paid $20 to $30 an hour to do. Konica has used prisoners to repair copiers for less than 50 cents an hour. Toys R Us used prisoners to restock shelves, and Microsoft to pack and ship software. Clothing made in California and Oregon prisons competes so successfully with apparel made in Latin America and Asia that it is exported to other countries.
Inmates are also employed in a wide variety of service jobs as well. TWA has used prisoners to handle reservations, while AT&T has used prison labor for telemarketing. In Oregon, prisoners do all the data entry and record keeping in the Secretary of State's corporation division. Other jobs include desktop publishing, digital mapping and computer-aided design work.

This slave labor has got to the point where industries are closing down because they cannot compete with the prison wages. Entire prison have been leased out to private contractors

The growth of prison labor has directly led to the destruction of other workers' jobs. For example, Lockhart Technologies, Inc. closed its plant in Austin, Texas, dismissing its 150 workers so that it could open shop in a state prison in Lockhart.

Linen service workers have lost their jobs when their employer contracted with the prison laundry to do the work. Recycling plant workers have lost their jobs when prisoners were brought in to sort through hazardous waste, often without proper protective gear. Construction workers have lost their jobs when the contractors were assigned to build an expansion of their own prison—essentially making the chains that bind them.

www.wsws.org...

MADE IN THE U.S.A.. . . BY CONVICTS

snip

A Texas company, U.S. Technologies, left 150 workers jobless when it sold off its Austin electronics plant. Just 45 days later, the same businesspersons opened up shop in a nearby town -- using prison labor.
Inmates at the notorious Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana have been de-boning chickens for 4 cents an hour for a private firm.

· A Washington company "hired" prisoners to wrap software for Microsoft.
· Golden arches, golden shackles? Oregon inmates produce electronic menu boards for McDonalds.
· In New Mexico, inmates take hotel reservations by telephone. California convicts took TWA airline reservations over the phone -- during a flight attendants' strike.
· Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest of the nation's 88 private prison operators, teamed up with Company Apparel Safety Items in the first partnership between a private prison and a private manufacturer.
· Next time you're turning the lights down and getting all comfortable, consider this: Prisoners in South Carolina made lingerie for Victoria's Secret.

lpa.igc.org...

Doing time, 9 to 5

snip

At Oakhill Correctional Institution in rural Dane County, 17 inmates crank $1.15 million worth of office chairs a year out of a cramped basement factory, making anywhere between 20 cents and $1.50 per hour. The money is put toward release savings, victim restitution, and court obligations such as child support. The inmates can spend what's left.
The operation is part of Badger State Industries, Wisconsin's prison industries program, which employs about 600 of Wisconsin's 10,000 inmates to produce everything from coffee cups to furniture--and, of course, license plates

Tennessee inmates produce jeans for Kmart and JC Penney and wooden rocking ponies for trendy Eddie Bauer (list price $80). Some states produce toys, and many produce mattresses. Until last year, 150 Ohio inmates made car parts for Honda. Oregon inmates make uniforms for McDonald's. In Nevada, inmates convert luxury cars into stretch limousines. And nearly all of the programs produce furniture, the largest component of prison industries nationwide.

Other examples abound
In Arizona, where a hog slaughtering plant closed down, putting United Food and Commercial workers out of work, prison industry looked suspiciously like a union-busting mechanism.
The plant subsequently reopened--as a joint venture between the Arizona Department of Corrections and the state's Pork Producers Association.
In Aurora, Ill., in a minimum-security arrangement, inmates have replaced an entire third shift at the local Toys R Us, stocking shelves and sweeping up.
In Utah, inmate labor has crippled the private-sector asbestos-removal industry.

www.well.com...

But you say this good it gives prisoners a trade when they get out right, sounds good to bad the trade they have learned is only being done at prison factory’s

And to be fair have listed these countries below as well, we all do it.

American prison labor

Canadian prison labor

British prison labor

Australian prison labor

Chinese prison labor




[edit on 31/3/2005 by Sauron]

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