Forced labor in Washington

I got a job working in the kitchen a while back, and the problem is, I don't want to work at all. I'd rather spend my time studying or writing, or just thinking - being productive and engaging in activities that fulfill me and challenge my capacities. But the Department of Corrections requires me to work against my will. If I refuse to work, then they'll punish me and keep me in closed custody for another year.

This is straight up forced labor, not to mention the fact that I am not fairly compensated for my work. Minimum wage? Forget about it. I work 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. That's 40 hours a week and roughly 160 hours per month. I get paid $35 per month. How can this be tolerated, how is it even legal? If they didn't force me to work then that would be different, but I have no choice in the matter. Can you believe this? Of course, the actual capital/labor relationship in regards to prison labor is probably worse in other states, but this whole scenario is despicable, period. We have to fight this injustice.

- a Washington Prisoner, July 2005

MIM responds: This comrade asks, "how is it even legal" to work for just over $0.20 an hour? Well, it is. We should remember that after the abolition of slavery on plantations in the south, the practice was kept legal in prisons where many freed slaves were soon rounded up and sent to. Section 1 of the 13th amendment reads, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

To this day, there are two places where people are exploited, or paid less than the value of their labor, within u$ borders. One is in prisons. The larger is among the growing populations of undocumented immigrants (many of whom are actually indigenous to lands stolen by the united $tates) who are not guaranteed wages by u$ law either.