Illinois prison slave labor

What brings me to write this letter is to ask for your assistance on a very important matter. I and the rest of the kitchen workers here are not familiar with Illinois labor laws for prisoners, but our minds tell us that they cannot work us seven days a week with double shifts at their discretion, which they refer to as "mandating."

We are paid $1 per day and are told that if we miss any days of work we can be fired or written a disciplinary ticket which could send us to segregation. Even Jewish and Hebrew-Israelite prisoners are forced to work on their religious sabbath day.

I understand that the penalty for me writing this letter may be
termination from my kitchen assignment, but I felt that I must uncover one of the many contradictions of a country that prides itself in speaking out against sweatshops and slave labor in underdeveloped countries. As long as America's prisons support slave labor and this practice is backed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, this country will never be "the land of the free," but the "home of the slave."

We ask that all true freedom loving people support us in our efforts to stop this inhumane treatment of prisoners. Join us in solidarity as we fight for our rights. To protest these slave labor conditions, please contact:

Warden Kenneth Briley, Stateville Correctional Center
P.O. Box 112
Joliet, IL 60434
phone (815) 727-3607

Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections
Donald N. Snyder
1301 Concordia Court
Springfield, IL 62794-9277
phone (217) 522-2666.

In closing I would also like to add that every other prison assignment down here works only five days a week with two days off. The kitchen assignment is the only detail that is forced to work seven days without any days off. Dare to struggle! Dare to win!

Revolutionary Love,
--an Illinois prisoner, August 2002


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