operating prison, union response!

The Prisoners form for many decades already the line
forehead of a production system based on slavery. Coincé.es between four walls
the duration of their sentence, they and are often forcé.e.s to work for wages
ridiculous and inhumane conditions. Under the guise of wishing they lie and they make to society what they and they would have taken him or at least they contribute and to pay what it costs to keep them in custody, US prison complex offers more regularly the services of this labor at low cost to private companies.

Considering that the majority of people who passed through the prison system will return there,
they and they are mostly issu.e.s of racialized communities and for the expansion that took the prison system in the US (70 million state-uniens and uniennes states have criminal records and nearly one percent of the population is behind bars) there is no longer any doubt that this is not only a way to put the unemployed to forced labor, but also to ensure that the most démuni.e.s of society not to express their discontent. That is why from the beginning of the year 2014, Members of the IWW contacted by prisonnier.es helped form the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWW-IWOC). The objective was clear, it was easy connection Prisoners wanting to organize as the foundation of trade unionism to improve their living conditions. In just a few months, more than 700 cards were signed, making the IWOC one of the largest unions in modern IWW in the US.

At the beginning of last April, mobilization has reached a record high when strikes broke out in seven state prisons Texas. Taking the slogan "We are in it for you, you are outside for us" at the foot of the letter, the local members of the IWW from around the world grabbed their phones to call the authorities concerned to emphasize their support for IWOC and their dissatisfaction with the conditions in which these and past are obligé.e.s work, thus causing a complete blockage of Communications Department of Criminal Justice of Texas. Many strikes continued until spontaneous 27 April or refusing to work in the storm, incarcerated workers of the prison Estelle, Always in Texas, let know that they could become the 8th state prison to fall in general strike. Faced with this threat, The authorities responded by pulling force the prisoners to their cells, making use tear gas and batons before placing a plurality of containment cells and prohibit their contact with the outside.

Not shrinking threat, the 10 June, 7 prisonnier.es the Waupun Correctional Institution and Columbia Correctional Institution began a hunger strike to draw attention to the inhumanity of confinement cells. As of publication, the 7 prisonnier.es would be their third day without food and IWOC not stop there having already announced a national general strike 9 September.

For more & rsquo; information, visit the IWOC or visit its biannual daily on the Incarcerated Worker