Green company supports 'Prisonfare' and sack workers
Peter Robinson
Below you will see an extract from a Right to Work mailing about a campaign against Prisonfare. What it doesn’t spell out is that the company Becoming Green is a solar panel installation company. See http://www.becominggreen.co/index.html
Not only does it proclaim to be Green, it talks about making money with solar energy, which is not unreasonable, but also proclaims :
Becoming Green plans to cut crime!
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Becoming Green is proud to announce that it’s planning to cut crime and reduce substantial costs to the tax payer by joining the Government initiative of helping prisoners to develop skills and to stop reoffending. Becoming Green Ltd was set up with core values that ensures our customers either save money, are made richer, or their lives are enhanced by the services and products we provide. We have never detoured from those principles but we do continually challenge and expand them to enable them to evolve and be the company our society needs. |
I don't expect ‘green’ companies to be ethically pure, and they will get caught up with the contradictions of trying to trade and get the maximum of their workforce. But they shouldn’t go around making a virtue of exploiting prisoners. The Becoming Green website gives the impression that the prisoners are being retrained with solar panel refitting skills. However the RTW campaign says Becoming Green
has been using prisoners to staff its call centres. The company, based in Cardiff, has been bussing in prisoners from nearby and paying them as little as 40p an hour .... As well as using inmates as almost free labour it has sacked 17 fully paid workers since December, with prisoners now accounting for 15% of the workforce.
It would be good if environmentalists added their names to the open letter.
The campaign against ‘Prisonfare’ stepped up a gear yesterday as protestors pledged to continue action against Becoming Green, a firm in Cardiff bussing in prisoners to work for as little as 40p an hour.
Campaigners fear that the company could be a test case for a proposed government programme that could see entire call centres moved into prisons, resulting in huge job losses.
More than 30 people gathered outside Eastgate House, Cardiff where Becoming Green is based to demand that the firm withdraws immediately from the scheme.
Following the success of the open letter signed by the RMT's Bob Crow and the bakers union's Ian Hodson and dozens of activists condemning ‘Prisonfare’, the demonstration attracted local trade unionists and residents and two newly elected local Councillors. Local Councillor for Roath and Plasnewydd Daniel De’Ath spoke to the protests and congratulated campaigners on their action so far calling the scheme ‘appalling’.
Seb Cooke, of Right to Work South Wales, said:
‘Not only is prisonfare about massive exploitation, it’s also about driving down wages and taking away workers security. If workers lose their jobs as a result of prisoners being used, it pressurises people to accept less pay in order to keep their jobs’
Say No to Prisonfare!
Real Jobs Now!
Assemble: Wednesday, 22nd August
4.30pm , Eastgate House, Cardiff
Latest people to add their names to the open letter include Kerry Fairless Chair PCS Eastern Region, Sally Kincaid Divisional Sec Wakefield & District NUT and Patricia Clinton NUS LGBT Committee Women's Officer
To add your name email rtwsou...@gmail.com