AFSCME Wisconsin: State should stop placing inmates in jobs needed by law-abiding citizens

6/30/2009
Contact: Marty Beil
608-836-0024

Workers being laid off by Metalcraft in Mayville might be interested to learn that Mayville Engineering Company is hiring. But there's a catch. MEC is only hiring convicted criminals serving time in Wisconsin's correctional system.

Despite unemployment hovering near 10 percent and new layoffs being announced almost every day, Mayville Engineering is adding 17 workers to its third shift. The catch is, those jobs are only going to inmates serving time at Wisconsin's Fox Lake Correctional Institution.

It's a sweet deal for an employer: workers are delivered to the workplace on time, drug free and in no position to stand up for themselves on any pesky workplace issues of pay or safety. In fact, it is such a sweet deal that MEC already has recently employed as many as 43 inmates at its facility in Beaver Dam.

"Fox Lake Correctional Institution is becoming an employment agency for MEC. It's also acting as a transportation provider and security service. It's one stop shopping for employers who would rather avoid the free market of free men and women," said Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24.

Beil said that while in better times prisoner work programs might play a positive role in rehabilitation -- in tough times they mean convicted criminals are taking good jobs away from law-abiding citizens with families to support.

"In these times, law abiding citizens should be first in line to bring home a salary to their families. Criminals shouldn't be padding their own accounts while living at the expense of the state," Beil said.

One inmate has amassed more than $90,000 in his prison bank account while working at MEC, Beil said. "The state has no business subsidizing a practice that is taking good jobs away from law abiding citizens," Beil said.

The need for jobs obviously is urgent. In mid-June, Metalcraft announced it was laying off 325 employees in Wisconsin, with 244 of the layoffs at its Mayville facility.

"Those laid off workers shouldn't have to commit a crime to be eligible for jobs at MEC or any employer. The state should suspend its employment and chauffeur services for inmates in this economy and let law abiding citizens have a chance for those jobs," Beil said.


http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=163238`

If they're making good money, then maybe they can pay for their own room and board.

I'd stop, but then I'd be a republican. :evilgrin:

people should have access to the jobs, but if these people don't learn anything else but crime, they will never be able to break out of the cycle. The part that is concerning is: It's a sweet deal for an employer: workers are delivered to the workplace on time, drug free and in no position to stand up for themselves on any pesky workplace issues of pay or safety. In fact, it is such a sweet deal that MEC already has recently employed as many as 43 inmates at its facility in Beaver Dam.