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<h1><font size=4><b>BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal
Residents Struggle</b></font></h1><font size=3>Abe Louise Young | July
21, 2010<br>
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle?page=full" eudora="autourl">
http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle?page=full<br>
<br>
</a>In the first few days after BP’s Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded,
spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen
on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the
words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters.
Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods
disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be
using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for
work? The outfits disappeared overnight.<br><br>
Work crews in Grand Isle, La, still stand out. In a region where nine out
of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively
African American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so
conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a
<a href="http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/naacp-what-we-want-to-see-with-bp.php">
public letter</a> [1] to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know
why black people were over-represented in “the most physically difficult,
lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to
toxins.”<br><br>
Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while
cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate
workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not
only cheap but easily silencedand it gets lucrative tax write-offs in
the process.<br><br>
Known to some as “the inmate state,” Louisiana has the highest rate of
incarceration of any other state in the country. Seventy percent of its
thirty-nine thousand inmates are African-American men. The Louisiana
Department of Corrections (DOC) only has beds for half that many
prisoners, so twenty thousand inmates live in parish jails, privately-run
contract facilities and for-profit work release centers. Prisons and
parish jails provide free daily labor to the state and private companies
like BP, while also operating their own factories and farms, where
inmates earn between zero and forty cents an hour. Obedient inmates, or
"trustees," become eligible for work release in the last three
years of their sentences. This means they can be a part of a market-rate,
daily labor force that works for private companies outside the prison
gates. The advantage for trustees is that they get to keep a portion of
their earnings, redeemable upon release. The advantage for private
companies is that trustees are covered under Work Opportunity Tax Credit,
a holdover from Bush's Welfare to Work legislation that rewards
private-sector employers for hiring risky "target groups."
Businesses earn a tax credit of $2,400 for every work release inmate they
hire. On top of that, they can earn back up to 40 percent of the wages
they pay annually to "target group workers.”<br><br>
If BP’s use of prison labor remains an open secret on the Gulf Coast, no
one in an official capacity is saying so. At the Grand Isle base camp in
early June, I called BP's Public Information line, and visited
representatives for the Coast Guard Public Relations team, the Department
of Homeland Security, and the La. Fisheries and Wildlife Department. They
were all stumped. Were inmates doing shore protection or oil cleanup
work? They had no idea. In fact, they said, they'd like to knowwould I
call them if I found out?<br><br>
I got an answer one evening earlier this month, when I drove up the
gravel driveway of the Lafourche Parish Work Release Center jail, just
off Highway 90, halfway between New Orleans and Houma. Men were returning
from a long day of shoveling oil-soaked sand into black trash bags in the
sweltering heat. Wearing BP shirts, jeans and rubber boots (nothing
identifying them as inmates), they arrived back at the jail in unmarked
white vans, looking dog tired.<br><br>
Beach cleanup is a Sisyphean task. Shorelines cleaned during the day
become newly soaked with oil and dispersant overnight, so crews shovel up
the same beaches again and again. Workers wear protective chin-to-boot
coveralls (made out of high-density polyethylene and manufactured by
Dupont), taped to steel-toed boots covered in yellow plastic. They work
twenty minutes on, forty minutes off, as per Occupational Safety and
Health Administration safety rules. The limited physical schedule allows
workers to recover from the blazing sun and the oppressive heat that
builds up inside their impermeable suits.<br><br>
During their breaks, workers unzip the coveralls for ventilation, drink
ice water from gallon thermoses and sit under white fabric tents. They
start at 6am, take a half hour lunch and end the day at 6pm, adding up
three to four hours of hard physical labor in twenty-minute increments.
They are forbidden to speak to the public or the media by BP's
now-notorious gag rule. At the end of the day, coveralls are stripped off
and thrown in dumpsters, alongside oil-soaked booms and trash bags full
of contaminated sand. The dumpsters are emptied into local HazMat
landfills, free employees go home and the inmates are returned to work
release centers.<br><br>
Work release inmates are required to work for up to 12 hours a day, six
days a week, sometimes averaging 72 hours per week. These are long hours
for performing what may arguably be the most toxic job in America.
Although the dangers of mixed oil and dispersant exposure are largely
unknown, the chemicals in crude oil can damage every system in the body,
as well as cell structures and DNA.<br><br>
Inmates can’t pick and choose their work assignments and they face
considerable repercussions for rejecting any job, including loss of
earned "good time." The warden of the Terrebonne Parish Work
Release Center in Houma explains: "If they say no to a job, they get
that time that was taken off their sentence put right back on, and get
sent right back to the lockup they came out of." This means that
work release inmates who would rather protect their health than
participate in the non-stop toxic cleanup run the risk of staying in
prison longer.<br><br>
Prisoners are already subject to well-documented health care deprivations
while incarcerated, and are unlikely to have health insurance after
release. Work release positions are covered by Worker's Compensation
insurance, but pursuing claims long after exposure could be a Kafkaesque
task. Besides, there is currently no system for tracking the medical
impact of oil and dispersant exposure in cleanup workers or affected
communities.<br><br>
<b>"They're not getting paid, it's part of their sentence”<br><br>
</b>To learn how many of the 20,000 prisoners housed outside of state
prisons are involved in spill-related labor, I called the DOC Public
Relations officer, Pam LaBorde, who ultimately discouraged me from
seeking such information. ("Frankly, I do not know where your story
is going, but it does not sound positive,” she said on our third phone
call.)<br><br>
Going to prison officials directly didn’t help. The warden of a South
Louisiana jail refused to discuss the matter, exclaiming, "You want
me to lose my job?" A different warden, of a privately-owned center
admitted, on condition of anonymity, that inmates from his facility had
been employed in oil cleanup, but declined to answer further questions.
Jefferson Parish President Steve Theriot and Plaquemines Parish President
Billy Nungesser, and Grand Isle Police Chief Euris DuBois declined
interview requests.<br><br>
Transparency problems are longstanding with the La. DOC. There is also
scant oversight of private prison facilities. Following Hurricane
Katrina, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a 140-page
<a href="http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-report-details-horrors-suffered-orleans-parish-prisoners-wake-hurricane-katrin">
report</a> [2] that documented abuses and botched prison evacuations, as
well as the numerous times its requests for official information were
rejected. “It appears that you are standing in the shoes of prisoners,
and therefore DOC is exempted from providing any information which it
might otherwise have to under public records law,” DOC lawyers told the
<a href="http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights">ACLU National Prisons
Project</a> [3].<br><br>
Some officials have been more forthcoming. A lieutenant in the
Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office told me that three crews of inmates
were sandbagging in Buras, La. in case oil hit there. "They're not
getting paid, it's part of their sentence,” she said. “They'll work as
long as they're needed. It's a hard job because of the heat, but they're
not refusing to work." In early May, Governor Bobby Jindal's office
sent out a <a href="http://www.corrections.state.la.us/ehcc/">press
release</a> [4] heralding the training of eighty inmates from Elayn Hunt
Correctional Center in "cleaning of oil-impacted wildlife recovered
from coastal areas." DOC Spokesperson Pam LaBorde subsequently
denied that any inmates participated in wildlife cleaning
efforts.<br><br>
Offering an exception to this policy of secrecy is Lafourche Parish Work
Release Center, the only one in the state that is accredited by the
American Correctional Association. It is audited regularly and abides by
national standards of safety and accountability, which is perhaps why I
was able to simply walk in on a Thursday afternoon and chat with the
warden.<br><br>
Captain Milfred Zeringue is a retired La. state police officer with a
jaunty smile, powerful torso, and silver hair. His small, gray office is
adorned with photos of many generations of his Louisiana family and a
Norman Rockwell print picturing a policeman and a small runaway boy
sharing a meaningful look at a soda fountain counter. A brass plaque
confers the "Blood and Guts Award" upon Zeringue. Of 184 men
living under the Captain's charge, 18 are currently assigned to oil spill
work. The numbers change daily and are charted on white boards that
stretch down the hallway.<br><br>
Captain Zeringue says that inmates are glad for any opportunity they can
get, and see work release jobs as a step up, a headstart on re-entry.
"Our work release inmates are shipped to centers around the state
according to employer demand,” he explains, describing the different
types of skilled and unskilled labor. “I have carpenters, guys riding on
the back of the trash trucks, guys working offshore on the oil rigs,
doing welding, cooking. Employers like them because they are guaranteed a
worker who's on time, drug-free, and sober.”<br><br>
“And,” he adds, “because they do get a tax break."<br><br>
Inside the center, men sit around long plastic tables watching TV, or nap
on thin mattresses under grey wool covers. The windowless dormitories
hold 20 to 30 men each in blue metal bunk beds. Hard hats hang off of
lockers, ceiling fans circle slowly, and each bunk has a white mesh bag
of laundry strung from one rung. An air of dejection and fatigue
permeates the air, but the facility looks safe and clean. It's surrounded
by chain link fence and staffed by former police officers. One long shelf
stacked with donated romance and adventure novels serves as a library.
GED classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings gather weekly. Individuals
are free to walk around the halls, use pay phones, shoot pool, or sit and
watch cars pass on the highway from a small outdoor yard. A doctor visits
once a week. Inmates greet the Captain as we walk and jump to hold doors
open for us.<br><br>
Zeringue exudes a certain affection for the workers in his center.
"To me, I'm kind of like Dad here. The inmates come to me and talk
about their problems. They get antsy and nervous when they're close to
getting out--how am I going to survive, how's my family gonna be with
me?"<br><br>
Like all Gulf Coast residents, inmates have good reason to feel anxious
about the future. BP has received almost 80,000 claims for lost revenue
in the wake of the spill. Scores of people are out of work, the offshore
drilling industry is in limbo, and the age-old fishing and shrimping
professions are looking death in the face. In the towns and bayous of the
Gulf, anxiety and post-traumatic stress are taking hold.<br><br>
In some places, the desperation is palpable. I met Randy Adams, a
construction contractor from Grand Isle, on the sidewalk outside of a
local bar. "This BP spill is turning me into an alcoholic, because I
don't have anything to do," he says. "That, that, thing--that
thing they did--" He points to the beach. He's unable to say “spill”
or label it in any way. He points to the water again and again.
"That thing has taken everything away from me. I have a gun under
the front seat of my truck, and every day I decide, do I want to put a
bullet in my skull? Live or die, that's my choice here, every day. My
life is gone, do you understand?"<br><br>
Scott Rojas of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission
suggests that for all the work to be done, finding local labor to do
oil-spill cleanup jobs is trickier than it would seem. "These are
really hard, and really low-paid jobs--I know agencies have put effort
into finding locals to do the work. But they may not always have an easy
time of it. As for reports of inmates being hired, I can't confirm or
deny. The people down in Grand Isle swear to it, but you're going to have
to talk to them." <br><br>
The Louisiana Workforce Commission, the state unemployment agency, is
advertising hazardous waste removal oil spill cleanup positions as
"green jobs." They pay $10 per hour, so these jobs might seem
like an attractive opportunity. But Paul Perkins, a retired Angola Prison
deputy warden who owns and operates five for-profit inmate work release
centers, says that even as the agency is “overflowing with applications
for oil spill jobs,” the work force is inconsistent. “They might hire 400
people on Monday, and after one day of work, only 200 will come back on
Tuesday.”<br><br>
Hiring prison labor might prove more reliable, but it evokes
understandable rage among Gulf Coast residents. According to Perkins, the
Louisiana Secretary of Corrections, James LeBlanc, met with disaster
contractors in early June and asked them to stop using inmate labor until
all unemployed residents found work. But as the spill has so dramatically
demonstrated, in this new environment, the government seems only able to
make polite requests. BP calls the shots, and their private contractors,
like ES&H, are the sole clean-up operators. From there,
subcontractors, such as <a href="http://ablebody.ablehq.com/">Able Body
Labor</a> [5], decide who to employ.<br><br>
<b>Working for BP: "This isn't what I would like to be
doing.”<br><br>
</b>Anna Keller relocated to Grand Isle in May to work with Gulf Recovery
LLC, to help develop community-based responses to the oil disaster. Also
a member of <a href="http://www.criticalresistance.org/">Critical
Resistance New Orleans</a> [6], Keller says, it is "common
knowledge” that prisoners are doing cleanup. “If you talk to anyone
working on the beach they'll tell you, yes, prisoners are working
here." She describes a shipping container that sits at the turn-off
for the Venice Boat Harbor. It advertises "Jails to Go,"<br>
a company that installs barred windows and bunks in shipping containers
so that they can hold work-release prisoners.<br><br>
According to Keller, the use of inmate labor takes recovery one step
further away from those people who are most intimate with the ecology,
culture, and landscapes of the area. In her view, they should be hired
first, and not just for the grunt jobs. "Community members should be
hired in the planning stages, and paid for their expertise. The local
people are the true experts here.”<br><br>
Up the road at A-Bear's Restaurant in Houma, an elderly man in overalls
describes his son's financial dilemmas to the room of locals over dinner.
The son is forty, married with children, and was laid off from an oyster
shucking factory shortly after the BP leak began. He's now walking
door-to-door with a lawnmower, looking for grass to cut. The man holds
his head in both arthritic hands. The waitress hands him a paper napkin
to blot his eyes. I ask him if his son would work for BP in the cleanup
and he grimaces. "Maybe, no, I don't think so,” he says. “That would
be hard for his pride, you know? For that little money?
No."<br><br>
Beach cleanup workers do make the lowest wages in the recovery effort.
Others on the BP payroll have it slightly better, but the jobs they are
doing are a daily reminder of what they have lost. Chris Griffin is a
French-speaking Cajun shrimper whose father and grandfather also
captained shrimp boats. After oil contamination closed the Gulf waters,
Griffin was hired to captain airboat tours of oil-impacted marshlands for
BP. Three times a day he steers a slim four-seat boat with a deafening
engine into the waters he's known all his life, while Coast Guard
officials give media tours and answer the same grim questions again and
again.<br><br>
"This isn't what I would like to be doing," Griffin says,
"but I'm glad I have a job so I can take care of my family. I'm not
worrying about the money. Not everybody has that. Me, I'm worrying about
the years in the future here. Will we keep cleaning it up? Will they take
care of everybody?" <br>
<hr>
<b>Source URL:</b>
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle">
http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle</a>
<br><br>
<b>Links:<br>
</b>[1]
<a href="http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/naacp-what-we-want-to-see-with-bp.php" eudora="autourl">
http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/naacp-what-we-want-to-see-with-bp.php<br>
</a>[2]
<a href="http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-report-details-horrors-suffered-orleans-parish-prisoners-wake-hurricane-katrin" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/aclu-report-details-horrors-suffered-orleans-parish-prisoners-wake-hurricane-katrin<br>
</a>[3]
<a href="http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights<br>
</a>[4]
<a href="http://www.corrections.state.la.us/ehcc/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.corrections.state.la.us/ehcc/<br>
</a>[5]
<a href="http://ablebody.ablehq.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://ablebody.ablehq.com/<br>
</a>[6]
<a href="http://www.criticalresistance.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.criticalresistance.org/<br><br>
<br><br>
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