'Another reason your wages are low: it’s cheaper to hire convicts.' OPINION via ProSyn
NEW YORK — Blaming manufacturing-job losses on low-wage foreign competition, or, increasingly, on automation has become a staple of populist politics in developed countries. Nowhere is this truer than in the United States, where President Donald Trump campaigned on the issue in 2016 and has since launched a trade war with China.
They work for companies like Walmart WMT, +0.33% , AT&T T, +0.18% , Victoria’s Secret LB, +0.75% , and Whole Foods Market AMZN, +0.50% ; yet they earn less than $1 per hour, on average — far less than the legal minimum wage for non-incarcerated workers.This is precisely the complaint that has been leveled against China since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 — an event now widely referred to as the “China shock.
One might expect that prison labor became most prevalent in the South after the Civil War, given the region’s history of convict leasing and chain gangs. But the overwhelming majority of inmates were employed in the Northeast and Midwest in 1886-1941, producing manufacturing goods. Among free laborers, women — who tended to dominate the apparel and shoemaking industries – suffered the most, as inmates filled their jobs and drove down their wages. And male inmates could not use their newly acquired skills after their release, because apparel and shoe manufacturers tended to favor women when hiring free labor.
If the Trump administration is serious about protecting the livelihoods of U.S. workers and the integrity of market competition, addressing the problems raised by prison labor is a good place to start. In Colorado, for example, state agencies must purchase certain goods, such as office furniture, from the state’s correctional industries, a requirement that puts firms without access to convict labor at a distinct disadvantage. A lack of transparency in the process of determining which firms may use convict labor does not help.
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