Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has found himself entangled in controversy after it was revealed that prison inmates were employed to make calls for Bloomberg’s 2020 campaign.
Bloomberg’s campaign hired a vendor that subcontracted the work to prisoners in state prisons, according to The Intercept.
The billionaire’s camp cut ties to the vendor, ProCom, once the information was released to the public, claiming that they were unaware that the vendor was outsourcing campaign calls to prisons.
“Through a third-party vendor, the Mike Bloomberg 2020 campaign contracted New Jersey-based call center company ProCom, which runs calls centers in New Jersey and Oklahoma,” wrote The Intercept reporter John Washington. “Two of the call centers in Oklahoma are operated out of state prisons…incarcerated people were contracted to make calls on behalf of the Bloomberg campaign.”
The news source learned that female inmates from the women’s prison Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma were employed to makes the calls. The former mayor of New York faced the report head on by releasing a statement acknowledging the situation.
“Earlier today, a news outlet accurately reported that a subcontractor for one of our vendors was using prison workers to make phone calls on behalf of my campaign. After learning this, we immediately ended our relationship with that company…We do not support this practice and we are making sure our vendors more properly vet their subcontractors going forward.”
While Bloomberg has cut ties with ProCom, many people are concerned with the exploitation of prison workers. On one hand, allowing prison workers to earn wages while serving time encourages self-sufficiency and work ethic. However, prison labor is also an example of modern day slavery, enabling companies to obtain a workforce at a very low cost.
ProCom claims that the company pays prisons the state minimum wage at $7.25 per hour. The prisons are entrusted to pay the inmates based on their policies, which can max out at $27.09 per month, according to the report.
A spokesperson for Bloomberg responded to The Intercept’s report saying, “We didn’t know about this and we never would have allowed it if we had. We don’t believe in this practice and we’ve now ended our relationship with the subcontractor in question.”
