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Law & Enforcement
Campaign Against Prison Slavery : National Day Of Action Against Wilko's Slave Labour Chain: 24th of April by Mark Barnsley The Campaign Against Prison Slavery in the UK is calling on all groups and individuals who support the campaign to take part in a National Day of Action against Wilkinson's on Saturday the 24th of April. Wilkinson's use the forced labour of prisoners in several prisons around Britain to pack their products, and so they are being targeted by the campaign. The past year has seen pickets of scores of Wilko's stores up and down the country, but if we are to end the company's ruthless exploitation of prisoners we must keep up the pressure on them. To take part just get a couple of mates together, print off and photocopy some leaflets (attached), visit the Wilko's website to find the nearest store, and turn up on the day to give them out. Banners, placards, megaphones, etc help to raise your profile. More ideas and resources for action will be made available in the weeks leading up to the day, see the CAPS website at http://www.againstprisonslavery.org If you decide to do an action you can either let CAPS know before (againstprisonslavery@mail.com) so that other activists near you can be informed, or turn up unannounced. Please let us know how your action went afterwards. The Case of Wilkinson’s, a British Company Wilkinsons claim to be a company with a ‘caring’ outlook, a company ‘working in partnership with local communities’, a company with an ‘ethical’ view. But in contrast to their publicity material, the reality is that rather than offer jobs to the community Wilkinson’s prefer to use the slave labour of a captive non-unionised workforce in order to keep their costs low and their profits high. Slavery has NOT been abolished in Britain, behind high walls and locked doors it still flourishes. Working class people are being forced to toil in poor conditions, beyond the reach of health and safety inspectors, denied even the most basic employment and trade-union rights, and severely punished if they refuse to work. In British prisons, there have been savage cuts in education budgets over the past half-decade, any pretence at rehabilitating prisoners and empowering them with trade skills has been abandoned. They are now seen as a readily exploitable labour force, a Third World colony in Britain’s own backyard, cheap, non-unionised, available, and literally compelled to work. If prisoners refuse to work, or are not considered to be working hard enough, they are punished—placed in solitary confinement, brutalised, denied visits, having days added to their sentences. Private companies are making enormous profits from prison labour, £52.9 Million in 1999, and that figure is growing rapidly. They use it because it is CHEAP—prisoners may be paid less than £5 for a week’s work - and for prisoners there are no ‘sickies’, no holidays, no union meetings, no transport problems, and if there’s no work they can simply be locked back in their cells. Prisoners are treated as the bosses would like to treat all of us. Wilkinson’s are one of many companies profiting from the slave labour of prisoners. In Swansea prison for example, where prisoners are forced to do packing work for Wilkinson’s, prisoners are paid little more than £1 per day. This greedy company would rather use slave labour than give more work to their own workers or employ new ones. The issue of prison slavery is an issue for ALL working-class people, not least because it undermines workers’ pay and conditions generally. Not because prisoners are somehow ‘stealing’ jobs, they have absolutely no choice in the matter, but because companies can drive down the wages of their own employees by using prison labour, and it brings with it the threat of short-time and redundancies. The employees of Dysons, the vacuum-cleaner manufacturer, for example, were thrown out of work when Dysons decided to use cheap non-unionised labour in Malaysia, but how many Dysons’ workers knew that for some time the company had been using cheap, non-unionised labour at Full Sutton prison? Not surprisingly the latter-day slave-masters are desperate to keep their involvement secret, from their own employees, and from the wider public. The Campaign Against Prison Slavery exists to challenge and bring about an end to forced prison labour, and to expose the companies that exploit it. In the 21st Century it is high-time that slavery in all its forms was ended for good. Today we are here to shame Wilkinson’s. What You Can Do SAY NO TO SLAVERY – SAY NO TO WILKINSONS! To participate in this one, write before April 24th, 2004. Campaign Against Prison Slavery, PO Box 74, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4ZQ. or write ASAP to Againstprisonslavery@mail.com. About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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