Campaign on Texas labor exposes oppression MIM has started a campaign to oppose slave labor in the Texas state prison system, where thousands of prisoners involuntarily work for no pay or benefit to themselves or their families. The campaign began by soliciting information and volunteers from among the many Texas prisoners who correspond with us. From there we are moving to formulate specific winnable demands and building public support for them. Information is pouring in from prisoners. In this article we report on some of what we have learned, to expose the practices of the prisons and build support for the campaign. Communists are not opposed to the concept of requiring prisoners to work as a part of a genuine process of rehabilitation. In the process of building socialism, members of non-productive classes in particular -- like capitalists and landlords -- need to learn what it means to contribute meaningfully to social production. And people who commit crimes against the people should work as part of their rectification process. The Chinese revolutionary government under Mao, from 1949 to 1976, used labor as part of the rectification of prisoners. That system treated prisoners based on the true nature of the crimes they committed. Now, however, the capitalist Chinese government exploits the labor of prisoners for profit, much like the Amerikans do. For example, in Amerika, people with addictions who commit petty property crimes to pay for illegal drugs are locked up for many years, while people who commit acts of mass murder in foreign countries are given prestigious positions of power, including seats in the U.$. Senate. The current injustice system has no legitimacy to require work of anyone, even those people who have committed genuine crimes against the people. In the current system, requiring work from prisoners therefore amounts to labor exploitation. Thus, we oppose forced labor in the U.$. prison system, as we oppose the Amerikan prison system itself. The dialectical good news, as with any system of labor exploitation, is the consciousness it creates. Witness one prisoner, who writes: "I am a young Black male here in the gulags of Texas and have been so for over seven years. I was 17 when I was put here and have come into a much deeper understanding than I had when I was dropped here in my narcotic stupor." The prisoner has gone on to great heights of revolutionary consciousness, including study and organizing with the prison system -- including a small strike reported below. Coercion to work The first thing to understand about labor in Texas prisons is that there is no real choice about working. One prisoner wrote: "I was basically put in administrative segregation because I refused to work in a field with an aggie [a kind of hoe -ed.] under direct sunlight, and I'm not getting any money at all for my hard labor. I received restriction [punishment -ed] for not going to work, I sometimes received restriction for being sick and not going to their fields."(1) Further, while any exploited worker is coerced into working by force of economic conditions (not the case for the great majority within U.$. borders), coercion in Texas prisons is different, because prisoners are working for their freedom in the form of "good time" credits. One prisoner writes: "We work and get paid so called 'good time.' But the system is self-sufficient, we make everything we need. So society pays less. Money is made and saved. But all we get is 'good time' to help get closer to parole, for those who qualify for early release. ... If you get written up in a disciplinary case you can lose your good time, which you can't get back. So if an officer doesn't like you or what you do whether you're wrong or not, they can take your good time. Ninety-nine percent of the time the disciplinary captain is going to find you guilty and take what he can." Further, those with "aggravated" sentences are not eligible for good time credit, but may still be required to work. Another prisoner writes, "I, having an aggravated charge do not get 'good time' credit no matter how much work I do or how 'good' a slave I am." To make matters worse, good time is arbitrarily taken away by prison officials on the basis of complaints against prisoners, and cannot be recovered. Working conditions Conditions of work in Texas prisons are much worse than those faced by most employees in the U.$. Nevertheless, they appear to be better than those for many in the Third World. A prisoner reports, "In the garment factory you work in conditions that are much better than those found in any Third World sweatshop, which I have always tried to point out that even prisoners here in Amerikkka benefit from U.S. imperialist undertakings." He reports working 8-hour days with a break for lunch, under tolerable if difficult conditions in the garment factory. By all accounts, agricultural work in the prison system is worse, however. One prisoner writes: "At 6 AM sharp, they call fields. We are corralled by twos in line, counted as cattle, while the officers are on their horses with their whips (guns). We are taken to cotton fields, corn, potatoes, onion and watermelon fields, and we work in the hot sun or cold winter (with no thermals provided). We work 5 hours with one water break every hour. When we pick any produce the quota is whatever the 'boss man' says is what you should get. And some people are expected to do more. When we 'flat weed,' or stand in a line with a 15-pound garden hoe called aggie, we must lift it over head and pound on the ground to chop long grass, weeds or whatever we are told to chop. It's called 4-steppin': you chop four times and step. ... Also on this plantation we have swine barns, and around them are a lot of cesspools that we have to flat weed around. This is unsanitary. We splash water and animal feces all over while we work. We walk through water and mud or whatever to get to the work site. Whether your feet are wet or not, whether you have blistered hands or not, no matter what -- work is mandatory." This account agrees with the prisoner who has worked in both the fields and the garment factory. He reports, "I have worked in the fields, though I have never picked cotton. Being a descendant of slaves and sharecroppers I refused to pick cotton. When I first came in this system into population (after spending the first two years of my sentence in lockdown, 23.5 hours a day in a cell), I was put in the fields, or as it is called here the 'ho squad.' The only time we didn't go out is if it was below 40 degrees (although this is consistently violated) or if it was raining hard (light rain was not a problem). Many times in order to circumvent the law prohibiting them from taking the 'ho squad' out in the freezing whether they wouldn't take us 'out' but keep us in and do work, that is inside the gate such as shoveling ice from the sidewalks." Conditions of work such as this might be good for developing revolutionary consciousness and organizing, but that is hampered by the severely restricted living conditions and segregation of any prisoner who starts organizing or making trouble for the pigs. This prisoner continues, reporting on the causes and consequences of his attempts to organize the other prisoner workers: "There are 5 or 6 lines [in the garment factory] depending on what orders they are filling. We made prison boxers, pants, shirts and country jumpers. We had quotas that we had to meet within the week's time. They even gave us 'incentive' to get the quota, if a line got the quota filled before Friday then that whole line got Friday off. We were turning out 1,100 pair of boxers a day and there were two boxer lines. On the jumper line they turned out from 150 to 200 jumpers everyday. Shirts and pants had similar quotas. I won't lie and say that the work conditions were bad because they weren't but we do not get paid ... An incident happened that could have unified the factory slaves but the willingness to sacrifice amongst the convicts is low. Everyone wants to 'go home' and is willing to endure unbearable (for me anyway being a communist and being a man) situations. Someone 'stole' some nippers. When a cursory search didn't turn them up the plant was shut down and everyone strip-searched even more thoroughly than the usual twice a day. Then we were taken outside (it was around 4:15 p.m. by now which as you know is the hottest part of the day, this being in the middle of summer) and made to stand in the sun. After about an hour some of the inmates began to grumble and moan, but when I and a couple of others inquired as to 'why didn't we all just sit down, they won't lock us all up,' we got lower eyes and mumbles and a shuffling of feet. The pigs were putting on the grand show for us, with the major out there (the presence of a high ranking slave master always seems to strike more fear in the heart of the slave) and they had brought several 'gas guns,' again no doubt for fear purposes (although they would not hesitate to use them). After about two hours total we were taken to the gym and the pigs let everyone sit down. I stood refusing to let the pigs see me weak or grateful. The rest of the slaves sat down with tired and glad sighs and began to chat and chatter away as if nothing was out of the ordinary. We were made to wait until the whole plantation had been fed then we were 'allowed' to go eat and sent back to our housing areas, with the warning that we would work in the morning. "The next morning was more of the same, standing and harassment. Sometime before lunch we were sent back into the factory and told to 'clean up the mess.' The pigs had went through the entire factory and tore it up with glee. Myself along with about three or four comrades went to our work area and sat down telling the supervisor that since the pigs tore it 'let them clean it up.' The majority did as told. Once the factory was cleaned up everyone was told to get back to work. We refused, but so as not to draw attention we did so quietly. Another comrade and I went along our 'line' talking to the brothers (the Black men) to find out how many were 'down' to 'lay it down' (refuse to work). Everyone gave a positive response. Then I went to talk to the 'Mexicans' (in prison most things are divided along 'race' lines) to see if they were down. Once all of the Hispanic organizations had conferred and said yes that was the whole of our line (there weren't any white men). The factory supervisor announced that everyone would work on Fridays whether or not they had reached their quota and this gave us a little spark of hope that it would be a factory wide strike. I, and a couple of more comrades, moved out to confer with the other production lines, we both came back with the same results: No one was willing to take a chance, not knowing what the pigs would do. So we did so on our line alone. By Friday we were over 3,500 boxers short of our 4,400 goal. By that Wednesday when the supervisor realized what was going on and threatened to make us work on Saturday many had started working, albeit slowly. But me and my comrades were at a crucial point in the production cycle, we did the elastic bands, somehow the sewing needles kept breaking and we moved slower than a snail's pace so that no matter what the other line workers did we wouldn't reach our goal. "Well, come that Monday the supervisor figured out the nucleus of our minute resistance movement (I don't know if someone snitched or not) and split us up. I called my two comrades over to the bathroom area and we occupied three of the four toilets for over 2 hours as the factory manager and assistant manager and security pig kept walking back and forth. That evening when we got off of our work assignment we all three had work assignment changes and disciplinary cases for refusing to work waiting on us. "Of course I was 'punished' -- did my time and went to my new work assignment, which was in the kitchen. But nothing much changed and I have been locked up in solitary numerous times for the same sort of activity. I refuse to lay down and I refuse to allow my integrity and revolutionary spirit to be tramped upon. I continue to educate and incite and direct the anger and rage of my people away from themselves and to the root cause of that rage -- the capitalist mode of production and all of its effects including prison. Although I could go on I will leave that for another correspondence. But know that I am in total solidarity with you." At the beginning of this campaign, the most important tasks are exposing these practices as widely as possible and building support for the demands we put forward. The use of forced labor in these prisons serves many nefarious purposes: exploitation by the state for economic gain -- both for the state itself and for the labor aristocracy that works as guards, construction workers and overseers in the system -- national oppression against Black and Latino nations, and political repression. The root causes of these crimes cannot be eradicated with a limited campaign against specific policies. But by building support for winnable reforms, we can expand the movement against this system and simultaneously improve conditions for the oppressed in the system. MIM calls on readers to take a stand against forced labor in the Texas prison system. Notes: 1. The law supposedly forbids requiring prisoners to do work what is not medically appropriate for them, but courts generally defer to prison medical officials' decisions about what is appropriate. Prisoners Self-Help Litigation Manual, by John Boston and Daniel E. Manville. Oceana Publications: New York, 1995. p. 133.