US prison slave labor. Unicor now advertises its call centers on its web page and in its catalogs as "domestic outsourcing at offshore prices."


(June 10, 2008) Corporations are getting rich using federal prisoners as captive (slave) labor pools.

Unless she's dying or recovering from surgery, a patient at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell must work.

The hospital out on the banks of Lake Worth is run by the Bureau of Prisons, and its patients are women who have been convicted of federal crimes. Bureau rules require all prisoners -- even those in wheelchairs -- to work at whatever jobs their infirmities will allow, from scrubbing floors to cleaning toilets.

Just across the street from the hospital complex is a camp for minimum-security women prisoners who are not ill. They get most of the hot, hard jobs -- cleaning boilers, welding, mowing. The pay is a lousy 12 cents an hour with no raises. That's why a job that many on the outside would take only as a last resort is the most coveted in the compound: Ernestine the telephone operator.