The Fed Prison Industries Board decide who will have access to UNICOR's prison workforce.

"The FPI already has "mandatory sourcing" requirements that all government agencies purchase products from UNICOR if of comparable in cost and quality. With the entrance of UNICOR into PIECP, they now have the authority to partner with private companies to use federal prisoners as a labor force to manufacture products or deliver services to/for these corporations or companies. Take a quick look at their products offered: http://www.unicor.gov/.
These partnerships at the state level have been used to displace tens of thousands of American workers. With the program now being made available to UNICOR, the number of U.S. jobs still available to private sector labor, will dwindle. This is what has happened over the past two decades with the PIECP (Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program) draining jobs from our communities.

The second piece of legislation accompanying authority to participate in PIECP, is even worse and shows precisely how politicians are working with CEOs and company owners to "launder" American jobs already lost to offshoring, Congress passed legislation enabling a "Repatriation" program to allow companies to return those jobs and skills to the U.S. Instead of bringing them back to America's unemployed, this new regulation allows the corporations to return the jobs and put them all in the hands of UNICOR's inmate work force - earning a maximum of $1.15 per hour. Repatriation would allow prisoners:

to manufacture products that would otherwise be produced outside of the United States, as approved by FPI's Board of Directors. with the passage of these authorities, FPI's Board has approved 14 pilot programs for repatriated products. FPI anticipates these pilot projects will assist in further reducing its losses."

So we focus on prison labor instead of jobs?




http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/27/1182487/-Jobs-Bill-Stalls-Legislation-Allowing-More-Corporate-Access-To-Prison-Labor-Passed#comments