Business and Injustice
I bought a real newspaper for the first time in months and sat down to read it while sampling some of the local barbeque. Alas, the BBQ here on the NorCal Riviera is as bad as the Mexican food; times like these are when I really miss living in Texas. Reading the paper proved more interesting. An article on page 3 entitled "Study: E-waste program dangerous" (online version here) compared Dell's e-waste recycling program with H-P's. Dell subcontracts out to a company called Unicor. Unicor, based in Washington state, employs 1,100 convicts who they pay anywhere from 20 cents to $1.26 an hour to handle and dispose of cathode ray tubes and other unsafe tech by-products. The study says the Dell/Unicor program exposes the prison laborers to dangerous chemicals, partially due to the low-tech working environment. The study contrasted this with H-P's program, which pays civilian workers $8 to $13 dollars an hour plus benefits, and minimizes their exposure to chemicals and other toxins.

Now we know one reason why Dell's prices are lower than the competition's.

Several things about this really disturb me. First, there are plenty of unconvicted citizens who need a decent job, and $8-13 an hour in a safe working environment surely beats unemployment. Second, most of the prisoners doing this kind of work are going to be the "safer" ones, i.e., they're in for non-violent crimes or misdemeanors. So putting them to work for third-world wages is exploitative to the extreme. Even if you don't care about the inmates' working conditions, you should realize that your and my taxes will have to pay the cost of their getting sick from performing unsafe work. I should also point out that our taxes are already paying the costs of their incarceration, thus providing a totally subsidized pool of labor for subcontractors who use prison laborers. I don't doubt the folks who run Unicor think that this is just good business. And it is, at least for those born without the scruples or ethics genes.

It's a sad comment on this society that this story is buried on page 3 of the business section and will probably only outrage Unicor's management (who are already on record calling the study "deeply flawed" and "disturbing"). If the matter is brought to HP's management's attention, they'll probably close their facilities and outsource to the prison contractors, too.

All so you can get a few bucks off the price of your computer. I have two Dell computers here in my home. I won't be buying another.