Mike (Billionaire) Bloomberg Exploited
Prison Labor to Make 2020 Presidential
Campaign Phone Calls
By
John Washington
December 25, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- Former New York City mayor
and multibillionaire Democratic
presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg
used prison labor to make campaign
calls. 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. Two of the call
centers in Oklahoma are operated out of
state prisons. In at least one of the
two prisons, incarcerated people were
contracted to make calls on behalf of
the Bloomberg campaign.
According to a source, who asked for
anonymity for fear of retribution,
people incarcerated at the Dr. Eddie
Warrior Correctional Center, a
minimum-security women’s prison with a
capacity of more than 900, were making
calls to California on behalf of
Bloomberg. The people were required to
end their calls by disclosing that the
calls were paid for by the Bloomberg
campaign. They did not disclose,
however, that they were calling from
behind bars.
The Bloomberg campaign confirmed the
arrangement in an emailed statement to
The Intercept. “We didn’t know about
this and we never would have allowed it
if we had,” said Bloomberg spokesperson
Julie Wood. “We don’t believe in this
practice and we’ve now ended our
relationship with the subcontractor in
question.”
The campaign said it did not know about
the arrangement between ProCom and an
undisclosed campaign vendor until The
Intercept made its inquiry. The campaign
then ended the relationship on Monday
and said it has asked vendors to do a
better job of vetting subcontractors in
the future.
“The use of
prison labor is the continued
exploitation of people who are locked
up, who really have virtually no other
opportunities to have employment or make
money other than the opportunities given
to them by prison officials,” said Alex
Friedmann, managing editor of
Prison Legal News and
an advocate for incarcerated people’s
rights.
John
Scallan, a ProCom co-founder, said his
company pays the Oklahoma minimum wage
of $7.25 an hour to the Oklahoma
Department of Corrections, which then
pays the incarcerated people working in
the call centers. The
Department of Corrections website
lists the maximum monthly wage for the
incarcerated at $20 dollars a month, but
another policy document says there is a
maximum pay of $27.09 per month.
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When asked if their total monthly
earnings are capped at these levels,
Scallan said incarcerated people who
work for ProCom make far higher wages.
“I can tell you unequivocally that is
not us,” Scallan said. “Some of them are
making that much every day.”
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections
did not respond to multiple requests for
comment to clarify the discrepancy, nor
to answer questions about ProCom’s
arrangement with the Bloomberg campaign.
Coming into
the race late, Bloomberg has plowed
millions of dollars into his long-shot
bid to take the White House. According
to Forbes, the former New York mayor is
worth $54 billion,
making most of his money from the
financial information and media company
that bears his name. After entering the
crowded race in November, Bloomberg’s
campaign has already hired more than 200
staffers in 21 states
and spent over
$76 million in television advertisements.
Newsweek estimated that Bloomberg could
spend
billions
on his campaign.
Prison
labor has been used in a federal
election on at least one other occasion.
In 1994, the late Republican
congressperson from Washington state,
Jack Metcalf, used prison labor
to make campaign calls and was
subsequently elected to Congress, where
he served three terms.
Initially, Stephen McQuaid, a director
of business development at ProCom, told
The Intercept that the company had no
current contracts with the Bloomberg
campaign. When pressed on whether the
company did any past work for Bloomberg,
McQuaid gave a long-winded response: “To
my knowledge we are not, and nor have I
ever heard that we were making any dials
for the Bloomberg campaign or on behalf
of them through someone else, nor have I
heard that we [are] currently making
them, but I am not in a position to know
every campaign that is going.”
Friedmann said that whether or not the
Bloomberg campaign knew about the
arrangement with ProCom, it was
responsible. “It’s entirely possible
they didn’t know,” Friedmann told me,
“but that’s like saying department
stores making clothes in southeast Asia
don’t know that 5-year-olds are
stitching together their soccer balls.
Well, shouldn’t you know? Shouldn’t you
have some idea of your supply stream, or
what your downside supply stream is
doing?”
