Prisoners’ rights should include labour rights:

Between November 2003 and January 2004, I spent 45 days in prison as a result of my refusal to pay a fine for my involvement in a mass trespass against the facilitation of the US war machine at Shannon airport. Following my release, my trade union – the Independent Workers’ Union – sent a bill to Limerick Prison following my release insisting on the payment of back-wages amounting to €1,978.58. The bill, based on the minimum wage, took into account that I worked as a dishwasher from 9am to 4pm each day, making a total of 49 hours a week, for which I received a voucher worth €2.54 each week. We deducted the vouchers from the overall figure.

Cheeky? Outrageous? Or about time? I’ve experienced all three reactions since we entered the claim, which, of course, is about the principle not the money. Not surprisingly, many people take a hostile view and feel little sympathy for prisoners. And why should they? Our prisons contain many criminals guilty of the most heinous of offences.

They also, of course, contain many people imprisoned for minor offences or who have ended up there as a result of complex familial or socio-economic circumstances. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of prisoners come from what we euphemistically describe as ‘less-well-off’ backgrounds.

Prisoners’ ‘rights’ are commonly disregarded because of a long-standing dehumanisation of those incarcerated; the hang ‘em and flog ‘em brigade, for instance, are forever telling us that prisons are five-star hotels where prisoners live it up at the taxpayers’ expense. Such nonsense facilitates the withholding of normal civil and labour rights from prisoners, including the fundamental right to receive a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

Nonetheless, I would argue that there are at least three strong reasons why working prisoners should be properly paid.

First, nobody is sentenced to hard labour in this country anymore. Convicted and remand prisoners lose their liberty, which is no small thing, but we no longer expect them to break stones. Indeed, only a small minority of trusted prisoners actually work within Irish prisons. However, these individuals do work that otherwise would have to be contracted out. They work in the kitchens, laundries and in other vital roles, doing jobs that prison officers or outside workers would normally perform.

There is a basic trade union principle involved here – every worker is entitled to a proper rate of pay, whether that person is a journalist with the Irish Times, an immigrant periwinkle picker or a full-time employee in one of our prisons. A worker is a worker. Slave-labour should not be acceptable in this country under any guise.

Secondly, there is a real danger that this cheap prison labour could be deployed to make profits for the private sector. Indeed, since this issue was first raised, Brid Smith, a former bin-charges prisoner in Dublin, has revealed that women prisoners in Mountjoy were stitching shoes for a private company – Dubarry’s – two years ago for derisory wages. Likewise, P.J. McEvoy (a former general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association) announced on RTÉ that he knows of several private companies, including Mercedes Benz that are using prison labour.

Is this the sort of society we want?

Prisoners operate call-centres, make paper cups for McDonalds and build roads on chain gangs in the United States. All unpaid and for the private sector. In this country, there are already people – and not just in the PDs – advocating the full or semi-privatisation of our penal institutions. Where would that leave prison labour? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Prison officers will resist such a development, but they must have our active support when they do so.

Thirdly, how does the blatant exploitation of a prisoner’s labour help in his or her ‘rehabilitation’? Plainly, it doesn’t. We hear platitudes from many commentators about the need for ‘rehabilitation’, but in practice little is done. It is clear that we need to radically overhaul our legal and penal systems. This will require new thinking, including the consideration of ideas that at first sight seem outlandish.

Stripping prisoners of basic labour rights is not helpful – prison shouldn’t be about increasing the alienation of those incarcerated. Moreover, a prisoner who has been paid a decent day’s wage for a decent day’s work is much more likely to see paid employment as an attractive option after his release than a prisoner who has experienced work as exploitation.

This article, by ISN member Fintan Lane, was published recently in Fourthwrite (winter, 2005–6). It is a revised version of an article originally published in the Cork Evening Echo on 28 November 2005.