A Guardian journalist has recently exposed a company in South Wales using day release prisoners in its call centre and paying them the equivalent of 40p per hour.
The prisoners, from Prescoed low security unit near Newport, are entitled to gain “work experience” at outside businesses and many inmates across the country do so, but this appears to be the first time that a company is using a workforce made up almost entirely of prisoners.
More worryingly, it is alleged that the company, Becoming Green, has either sacked or harassed many of its existing workforce into quitting, which is borderline illegal and certainly morally questionable.
Becoming Green has confirmed that since it started using prisoners, it has fired other workers. Former employees put the number at 17 since December. However, the firm said firings were part of the “normal call-centre environment” and it had hired other staff in a recent expansion.
And a former employee was quoted as saying that the prisoners were “quite nice people” and said that some were very good workers, but added that the wage difference caused resentment.
While Chris Bath, Executive Director at reformed offenders charity Unlock called the practice a “worrying development” and Steve Gillan, General Secretary of the prison officers’ union said that for any company to rely on the cheap labour of prisoners was “immoral and disgusting.”
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said: “It would be a very serious downside if we started replacing job opportunities for law-abiding people, and we’ve been conscious of that all the way through. Although we don’t pay the prisoners the minimum wage, normally you can’t start undercutting British businesses outside.”
Unemployment in Wales rose in the three months to May with 133,000 people out of work over the period.