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Prison Phone Companies Fight for Lucrative Florida DOC Contract

By David Ganim In April 2013, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) issued an invitation for companies to bid on the department’s coveted prison phone contract. The FDOC evaluated responses to the bid invitation and conducted negotiations with three companies: Global Tel*Link (GTL), Securus Technologies, Inc., which currently holds the department’s phone contract, and CenturyLink

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Pennsylvania Prison Guards, Sergeants Out-earn Supervisors

By David M. Reutter

Life in prison has always been far different than life in the free world. An investigation by the Pittsburgh-Gazette into the wages of Pennsylvania prison employees revealed one of those differences – an Alice-in-Wonderland quality to the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) pay scale.

Typically, an employee’s higher rank merits greater pay. Yet Pennsylvania prison guards, who occupy the bottom rung of the DOC’s employment ladder, are some of the state’s highest paid prison workers.

For example, of the 23 employees at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Pittsburgh who earned more than $100,000 in 2011, 21 were guards or sergeants. That same year, the best-paid captain at SCI Pittsburgh earned less than $88,000 while the top-paid lieutenant made $73,817. One guard, whose base pay was around $51,000, padded his income with leave pay, shift differentials and overtime to earn a total of $139,571. His overtime pay alone was approximately $75,000.

“That guy works every minute he can,” said David Mandella, local vice president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Association (PSCOA).

Of the $5.5 million in overtime paid at SCI Pittsburgh in 2011 – representing 17.3% of the prison’s total payroll – $4.9 million went to guards and sergeants. “[Overtime] costs have increased over the years to a current cost … of $50 million” systemwide, said DOC spokeswoman Susan McNaughton.

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Nevada Prison Industries Exploiting Businesses and Workers

By Bob Sloan

THE USE OF PRISON LABOR HAS BEEN increasing throughout the nation for the past fifteen-plus years. More and more factories are being built behind prison fences, with thousands of prisoner-made products sold to consumers annually – including apparel, processed foods, electronics, cabling, automotive and aircraft wiring, flooring, motorcycles, furniture, modular office systems … the list goes on.

Recently, a situation involving the use of prison labor in Nevada has drawn the attention of business owners and state officials alike after several steel companies discovered that one of their competitors had been using prison labor to cut costs and secure contracts.

The labor was provided by prisoners working in Silver State Industries – Nevada’s prison industry program – at the High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs. The prisoners were paid minimum wage while employees on the outside receive between $17 and $20 per hour for the same type of jobs.

With all the glitz and glimmer of Las Vegas, Nevada is still vulnerable to the current economic downturn and has an unemployment rate exceeding 10%. The discovery that prisoners were competing against local unemployed steel workers caused consternation among the local workforce. It also caught the attention of the state’s news media, which in turn attracted the attention of Nevada’s Board of State Prison Commissioners, which consists of Governor Brian Sandoval, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller.

The use of prison labor surfaced when Brian Connett, the chief executive of Silver State Industries, publicly announced the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) was proud to be part of the world-class 550-foot-tall “SkyVue Observation Wheel” project being built in Las Vegas. The NDOC is involved in the SkyVue project because the project’s steel contractor, Alpine Steel LLC, is using prison labor to fabricate components for what is destined to be a new “land-mark” on the Las Vegas skyline.

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