WS Chronicle

By Jessica Schnur 

This past Monday, Winston-Salem residents expressed several concerns at the city council meeting, including the issue that had been referenced multiple times about implementing inmate labor for the city of Winston-Salem in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Corrections. The proposed program would allow inmates to be contracted to work through the city’s Vegetation Management department, where they would perform such tasks as cleaning and maintaining the sides of local roads.  

The historic and continued exploitation of prison labor in the United States has underlined implications with what this program could mean not only for citizens of Winston-Salem, but also for the inmates employed. Allusions to the legacy of “chain gang” prisoners who had built this city rang through the words of many concerned advocates, including Vegetation Management employee Justin Cashow.  

During his presentation to the council, Cashow said, “We have openings in this position. We have four trucks running with five people. That means three trucks with only one person walking the street, picking up the litter. [If] I got hit by a car, no one’s stopping. I don’t have a partner with me to call for help. I’m not against having somebody with me that’s been in prison or currently in prison. I’m just against it, morally, of paying someone such low wages.”  

In the state of North Carolina, prisoners can earn a maximum of $1 per day for their labor, as stated in Article 3 of the General Statutes by the North Carolina General Assembly. In studies published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), it is found that inmate employees are not granted the same workplace protection (such as the employee rights provided by OSHA regulations) as those in the conventional workforce.  

“People also don’t know that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery, but it left an exception for incarcerated people,” said Caroline Warren, a family member of Justin Cashow, who followed his statement at the podium. Because of the working conditions for incarcerated individuals, many harbor concerns that the allocation of these positions will be disproportionately assigned to inmates at their own expense. “There is no reason to bring in temps to work during the summer when we cannot pay them $15, $20 an hour. We can just pay someone a dollar an hour,” expressed Cashow. 

The Department of Corrections’ inmate employment program has been ongoing throughout North Carolina for some time, and many details are left to the department’s jurisdiction. “For us to use folks that are in the correctional institution as a part of these programs, the Department of Corrections has a standard contract,” City Manager Patrick Pate stated in an interview for The Chronicle, “and so we don’t have any control over who gets sent, or the fact that they volunteer to do this, or what the correctional institution gives them in terms of compensation or money in their accounts for what they do.” Pate expressed the initial intentions behind the city’s consideration to not only promote a cleaner and improved appearance of city roads – an issue that has been continually expressed within the community – but to also provide opportunities for incarcerated individuals to develop working skills outside of their facilities. However, public input has been a valuable consideration for the council, according to Pate. “If the people in the community don’t want the city to participate,” he said, “[then I] think city council will make it clear that they’re not going to do that.” 

As expressed in the city council meeting and the interview, there have been no formal sanctions for the city to proceed with the pursuit of the program. “There are different points of view or different value systems that are out there on this and so it’s probably [not] going to be moving forward unless council has a definitive decision [that they think this is a] more positive benefit for the community,” City Manager Pate said.