Gulag Flooring

I sent a letter to my two California Senators a few months ago. Of course, those two Senators have bigger fish to fry than my concerns; bigger fish such as how to keep the seventh largest economy in the world, California, from becoming insolvent. I presume that's why I haven't yet received my response from them, some five months later.

Here's the letter:

I listened on television to President Obama's speech to Congress last night, and can draw inspiration from his words. But there is a problem in my industry that dilutes the potential effectiveness of this national economic recovery program.

I am the CEO of a private corporation in California manufacturing hardwood flooring. I am concerned that during these times of shrinking economic opportunities that our private sector manufacturing company, and our tax-paying citizen-employees must compete directly in the national marketplace not only with foreign imports, but also with U.S. and state-owned or
-sponsored prison enterprises.

Yes, incredible as it may seem, we face in the marketplace every day competition from wood flooring products made in prisons by low-paid prisoners in Tennessee and South Carolina, and maybe other state prisons I don't know about. Large flooring corporations like Armstrong Industries and other smaller competitors capitalize on this source of captive prison labor (pun intended). As a specific example, one of our prominent California manufacturing competitors recently laid off their 75 local taxpaying employees, and sent the work away to, not China, not Vietnam, but to the prison labor force of the Tennessee prison system. When our company loses business transactions, and we've lost plenty of them in recent months, our employees face layoffs, and the resulting loss of their abilities to pay their rent or mortgages, and the loss of their wages being recycled through the economy. When the prison industry managers lose business transactions, the prisoners simply go back to their taxpayer-supplied rooms and wait for their dinners.

When times are good, this prison industry issue is a minor irritation and routinely overlooked. Nowadays, when things are not so good, it's becoming a big deal. It's obviously unfair to private enterprise, struggling or not, even on the face of it. Surely, the original intent of the prison industry was to provide other state-owned purchasing requirements, such as furniture for schools.

This inequity should be simple to fix. I ask you to introduce clarifying federal legislation requiring prison industries to sell prison-produced products only to public entities such as schools. Prison labor should never, especially now, be placed in competition with private sector labor.

Sincerely,

James P. Oliver, CEO
Plantation Hardwood Floors
Oxnard, CA 93030
www.plantationhardwood.com