Prison Labor and Bloomberg

Former New York City mayor and multibillionaire Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg used prison labor to make campaign calls.  Bloomberg's 2020 campaign contracted New Jersey-based call center company ProCom, which runs calls centers in New Jersey and Oklahoma. Two of the call centers in Oklahoma are operated out of state prisons. In at least one of the two prisons, incarcerated people were contracted to make calls on behalf of the Bloomberg campaign.

A minimum-security women’s prison with a capacity of more than 900, were making calls to California on behalf of Bloomberg. The people were required to end their calls by disclosing that the calls were paid for by the Bloomberg campaign. They did not disclose, however, that they were calling from behind bars.

The use of prison labor is the continued exploitation of people who are locked up, who really have virtually no other opportunities to have employment or make money other than the opportunities given to them by prison officials,” said Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News and an advocate for incarcerated people’s rights.

John Scallan, a ProCom co-founder, said his company pays the Oklahoma minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, which then pays the incarcerated people working in the call centers. The Department of Corrections website lists the maximum monthly wage for the incarcerated at $20 dollars a month.

Bloomberg has plowed millions of dollars into his long-shot bid to take the White House. According to Forbes, the former New York mayor is worth $54 billion, making most of his money from the financial information and media company that bears his name. After entering the crowded race in November, Bloomberg’s campaign has already hired more than 200 staffers in 21 states and spent over $76 million in television advertisements. 

When asked whether or not the Bloomberg campaign knew about the arrangement with ProCom, it was responsible. “It’s entirely possible they didn’t know,” Friedmann said, “but that’s like saying department stores making clothes in southeast Asia don’t know that 5-year-olds are stitching together their soccer balls. Well, shouldn’t you know? Shouldn’t you have some idea of your supply stream, or what your downside supply stream is doing?”

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/24/mike-bloomberg-2020-prison-labor/