| From the Industrial Worker, Sept. 2003
Prison officials locked down some 1,100 prisoners at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado July 1 after dozens of inmate cooks went on strike to protest wage cuts. A SWAT-style "special operations response team" was dispatched to the prison. It was the first strike by inmates at a Colorado prison since 1978.
In order to help close a state government budget shortfall of $1 billion prisoners' pay was dropped from as much as $2 a day to as flat rate of 60 cents. Inmate workers do everything from custodial work to laundry and cooking. Twenty percent of these paltry wages are deducted to pay child support, victims compensation fees and court fines.
When the first shift of 15 cooks was called from their cells to start preparing breakfast at 3 a.m., all refused to work until the wage cuts were rescinded. When two more shift of cooks also refused to work, the west side of coo the Sterling facility was placed in lockdown.
During lockdowns, prisoners received cold meals in their cells, phones are turned off and visitation rights are stopped. Prisoners are denied recreational privilages and do not get to shower. In addition to pressuring the striking cooks by mistreating their fellow prisoners, prison officials have launched an investigation into who organized the strike. A prison spokesman said organizers could be sent to administrative segragation, lose earned release time, or transferred to a higher security prison.
The east half of the Sterling prison was not placed in lockdown, although about half of the food service workers also joined the strike and were placed in segragation |