Wired magazine reports that prisoners are making Patriot missiles.
This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.
But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.)
The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.
One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts.We can't decide if this is worse than military veterans earning poverty wages working for corporations that make Meals Ready to Eat. We have decided that it's a big mistake for the federal government to rely increasingly on sweatshop labor. Reports the American Prospect:
Under George W. Bush, as government privatized more functions, federal contracting increased by about half, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The EPI also estimates that nearly one-fifth of federal contracted workers did not earn enough to raise a family of four above the poverty line.How can the U.S. expect to win any war, economic or otherwise, if it encourages slave labor?
emptywheel makes the point well:
You know how I have argued that our country does have an industrial plan, one that is commonly called the Military-Industrial Complex? The government dumps seemingly unlimited amount of money into selected projects. Defense companies make sure to spread the jobs created by defense contracts around, so members of Congress support those contracts in bipartisan fashion. And then we export things like jets–one of the few things we export anymore.
Only, if we allow defense contractors to use prison labor, then the whole scheme sort of breaks down.It's sickening.
