34 Cents an Hour: Prison Labor & the Exception in the 13th Amendment

Into the Mix

Ben & Jerry's and Vox Creative

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 537 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Johnny Perez worked hard throughout his 13 year prison sentence. He sewed sheets and facilitated classes, met demanding quotas and helped other men prepare for life on the outside. The highest wage he was ever paid was 34 cents an hour. Meanwhile, prison labor generated $14 billion last year. So why do so many people like Johnny leave prison empty handed? In this Season Two finale, we’re going back to 1865, to understand how a key exception written into the 13th Amendment paved the way for the modern prison industry. From convict leasing to prison plantations, exploited labor is part of the DNA of this country, and more than two-thirds of people behind bars in America labor throughout their incarceration. Their average day wage? Just 86 cents. But: there’s a growing movement to end the exception, and end slavery once and for all in this country. Learn more about the movement to End the Exception here, and be sure to check out Worth Rises’ incredible study on prison labor, and UNICOR’s phone bank video. You can also learn more about Johnny’s work for NRCAT here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.
0:07.3	I'm Ashley C. Ford.
0:13.5	Johnny Perez is a father of two and a new resident of Jersey City just outside of Manhattan.
0:22.6	Yeah, I moved here in April, you know, it's pretty spaces.
0:26.6	It's a two-floor loft, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, lots of windows.
0:30.6	On this quiet October morning, every window in his corner unit is thrown open, filling the space with birdsong
0:40.0	and a breeze. And outside of them, horizon in every direction. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, you know,
0:52.4	it's like,
0:59.0	it all makes me emotional, because there are times that I wake up and I'm just like grateful, like eternally grateful, you know?
1:03.0	And then, yeah, there are times when I look out and I'm like, shit.
1:06.0	Like, you know, I'm here.
1:11.7	These windows are a protest.
1:15.3	I spent three and a half years in a cell with no windows, you know.
1:20.1	Sort of go from no windows to too many windows, you know, like really, it wakes me up differently.
1:25.9	These windows are a prayer.
1:32.8	Johnny spent 13 years waking up in prison cells, starting when he was 21.
1:39.0	And he spent a total of three and a half years in solitary confinement throughout his conviction. His longest
1:45.8	stretch was 10 months in a 6x8 cell. Johnny says that a lot of the time, solitary was used
1:53.5	as punishment for something so normal, so innocuous. It's hard to comprehend the cruelty
2:00.5	leveled against it, not showing up for work,
2:04.6	or something else we've all done on one workday or another, performed at less than 100%.
2:11.4	In 13 years, I went to non-different presidents in New York State. And the amount of times that I saw people go to the box or solitary for work-related misbehavior
	...

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