Dell's history of prison labor - the stain remains

A Public Relations spokesoid from Dell stopped by Constellations today to leave a response to Monday's the dollars in the bars - "we're offering you competitive prison labor" post. The note is a friendly little example of the mix of corporate marketing/branding/propaganda that infests US social discourse today:

BryantatDell said...

Hi - I work at Dell on corporate responsibility issues and noticed your post today - a good topic to be raised indeed.

One note - in the highlight Dell is among the companies listed. It's important to note that Dell absolutely prohibits the use of prison labor -- either directly or through our suppliers -- globally.

In fact, among the other companies listed in that higlight I'm sure our competitors HP and IBM have similar prohibitions. Dell, HP and IBM were among the founders of the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (www.eicc.info ) which prohibits use of indentured labor in the industry's supply chain.

Mr. Hilton I presume?

Mr. Hilton is probably aware (which I wasn't when originally posting) that Vicky Pelaez' article is from 2005 and covers the growing prison labor industries of the previous quarter-century. He also knows very well that Dell had a contract with Unicor during that period, operating an e-waste recycling program at the Atwater, CA prison (see prison labor & e-waste—smashing a computer to pieces) before it received national publicity unfavorably comparing its recycling practices to those of HP.

Surely he recalls, after that outpouring of negative publicity, the 7-4-03 NYT article by LAURIE J. FLYNN headlined:

Dell to Stop Using Prison Workers:

Responding to concerns from both customers and environmental advocates, Dell Computer announced yesterday that it would no longer rely on prisons to supply workers for its computer recycling program.

Dell, the world's largest seller of PC's, said it had canceled its contract with Unicor, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs prisoners for electronics recycling and other industries.

. . .

Last week, an environmental group in California released a report criticizing Dell's reliance on prison labor.

The group, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, said in its report that inmates who work at the prison recycling operation were not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act and were paid from 20 cents to $1.26 an hour.

The report also criticized Unicor for not properly disposing of toxic waste.

. . .

Bryant Hilton, a spokesman for Dell, said that the decision to replace Unicor with other recycling contractors was a business decision, based in part on the fact that many other vendors are now more competitively priced.

But he conceded that the company had heard from some customers complaining about the prison program.

"We did not make a decision based on special interest groups," Mr. Hilton said.

& from a related article:

Dell Computer disputed the accusations in the report, saying that the recycling operations met environmental standards and that the prison population benefited from them. "Our goal is keeping all of our recycling offers as low cost as possible," a spokesman, Bryant Hilton, said. "Unicor is part of the answer."

He added that the work program was voluntary, not forced, and that inmates who took part in it had a 24 percent lower recidivism rate than the rest of the prison population.

Dell officials also disputed the contention that the prison labor recycling effort undercut the formation of an American recycling industry. "There is currently not enough capacity for electronics recycling in the United States," Mr. Hilton said. "Unicor is not driving anyone out of business."

I'd assume Dell was included in Vicky Pelaez' article because it employed prison labor during the historical period she covers. It's certainly not inaccurate as BryantatDell's note implies.

Saying that the "Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (www.eicc.info ) . . . prohibits use of indentured labor" is not the same as saying that it prohibits the use of prison labor, which, as the company spokesperson points out in the NYT article, is entirely voluntary.

There is nothing in the EEIC (which, it should be noted wasn't developed 'til 2004, & is dated 10/14/2005) that I can find which would preclude participation in prison work programs, nor from paying less than minimum wage when the law allows it:

The labor standards are:

1) Freely Chosen Employment

Forced, bonded or indentured labor or involuntary prison labor is not to be used. All work will be voluntary, and workers should be free to leave upon reasonable notice. Workers shall not be required to hand over government-issued identification, passports or work permits as a condition of employment.

. . .

4) Wages and Benefits

Compensation paid to workers shall comply with all applicable wage laws, including those relating to minimum wages, overtime hours and legally mandated benefits. In compliance with local laws, workers shall be compensated for overtime at pay rates greater than regular hourly rates. Deductions from wages as a disciplinary measure shall not be permitted. The basis on which workers are being paid is to be provided in a timely manner via pay stub or similar documentation.

Let's recall the conditions at Unicor's Atwater operation that Dell contracted for and that Mr. Hilton has publicly praised to be a "part of the answer":

UNICOR’s operation is organized primarily to maintain a maximum-security facility, rather than to maximize the efficiency with which e-waste is sorted and disassembled. Its prison warehouse is organizationally and technologically backward. Cheap labor, paid .20 to $1.26 per hour at Atwater, offers little incentive to invest in worker productivity. In addition, prison workers have few rights and little ability to improve health and safety conditions. Inmates toil outside the protection of state and local environmental and labor regulations that private sector recyclers must follow. Prison laborers are not considered employees and are not protected against retaliatory acts by their employer (UNICOR) under the Fair Labor Standard Act. Inmates are not allowed to unionize or to serve on the prison health and safety committees.

All 'voluntary.'

Dell is certainly to be commended for halting its exploitative use of prison laborers working for pennies under highly toxic, under-regulated conditions. (Unicor however continues its Atwater & other prison e-waste operations.)
It's also "important" for everyone to understand that discontinuing the Unicor contract was merely "a business decision" on Dell's part, and that even then, the company was vigorously affirming the general practice of prison labor & Unicor's business specifically - "a good topic to be raised indeed."

From what I understand of Dell's current recycling program, the company has taken a positive step in the right direction on that issue, regardless of whether it was a business decision, a public relations decision, or a "corporate responsibility" decision.

I'm curious, given the misleading response, if Dell can unequivocally declare that it & its subcontractors have "absolutely" forsworn any further use of prison labor in all aspects of its operations?

While Dell no doubt would like to erase its part in the history of this ugly exploitation, the stain remains.

Ruby Rodriguez - another transgender murder

from the mailbox;

A Nicaraguan transgender woman, Ruby Rodriguez, 24 years old, was murdered on Friday, March 16, 2007. Her body was found on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Indiana Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco. The murder is currently under investigation by the San Francisco Police Department. Community United Against Violence (CUAV), EL-LA, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, TRANS Project, allies, and community members [held] a community vigil in her honor on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 6:00PM, on the corner of 24th Street and Mission Street in the Mission District.

. . . She was an exceptional woman who was intent on improving her life. Ruby participated in various support groups and language classes, and idolized Chicana singer Selena.

This murder comes at the heels of at least two other violent deaths of transgender women of color in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past six months. Transgender people, particularly low-income transgender women of color, are disproportionately poor, homeless, criminalized and imprisoned as a result of systemic discrimination in our daily attempts to access safe housing, healthcare, employment, and education.

Unfortunately, Ruby's murder is not an exception, but an everyday fear for many transgender people who are targeted and brutalized by institutions and society at large. Our communities mourn Ruby's death and ask for a renewed commitment to real safety for transgender communities. It is vital that the Mayor's Office, the San Francisco Police Department, and the District Attorney's Office work to end the cycles of criminalization, poverty, and violence in transgender communities and communities of color.

After the 2002 murder of Hayward transgender teen Gwen Araujo, a jury found her killers (some of whom had sex with Gwen) guilty of second degree murder, but declined to return a conviction on a hate crime charge. Still, as the Transgender law Center pointed out:

. . . the Alameda County District Attorney’s office has set a new standard for prosecuting transgender murder cases. You don’t have to look any further than Fresno County to see what the standard still is in many DA’s offices. Last month, a Fresno County DA accepted a four year plea bargain for a person who confessed to stabbing and killing a transgender person. In stark contrast, the Alameda DA’s office devoted their office’s full resources to this case not once, but twice. Along the way, they faced and beat down some of the most egregious uses of transgender panic tactics that many of us hope to ever see in a courtroom.

This year, we also saw media coverage that had once been sensationalistic and oftentimes disrespectful of Gwen’s identity evolve into coverage that correctly identified the defendant’s as the people on trial (not Gwen) and their actions as the thing being judged (not Gwen’s identity). This evolution is not limited to Bay Area print, broadcast, and internet journalists. I’ve spoken with journalists from around the U.S. who have said that the coverage of this case has sparked dialogues and changes in their newsrooms as well.

Gwen's murder & the consquent trial resulted in CA Governor Schwarzenegger signing the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act (AB 1160), which "puts California firmly on record as opposing a defendant’s use of societal bias against their victim in order to decrease their own culpability for a crime."

"Panic strategies are a cynical way for homicide defendants whose victims are members of a disfavored group to appeal to a jury’s worst impulses,” said Transgender Law Center Director Christopher Daley. “The Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act is a significant step towards preventing the same societal bias that killed Gwen and Joel from affecting a jury’s deliberations. It’s signage into law also advances California’s status as the most protective state in the nation for transgender people.”

100 children stranded - "a widespread humanitarian crisis"

AP:

About 100 children were left stranded at schools and day care centres after their parents were rounded up by federal authorities in a raid on a factory where hundreds of illegal immigrants worked to produce supplies for the US military.

About two-thirds of the 500 employees working at leather maker Michael Bianco Inc in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were detained on Tuesday by immigration officials for possible deportation as illegal immigrants. Most of the employees were women and, as a result, many of their children were not picked up from school or day care that day.

Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Centre of Southeastern Massachusetts, estimated about 100 children were left with babysitters or caretakers.

"We're continuing to get stories today about infants that were left behind," she said yesterday. "It's been a widespread humanitarian crisis here in New Bedford."

words are failing . . .