December 10, 2020
By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
2020 brought renewed global focus to issues of social justice in America. From the racial disparities and inequities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic to the killings of George Floyd and so many other Black and Brown Americans at the hands of police officers have all contributed to the evolving social justice “reckoning” across the nation.
As part of this long overdue redress about institutional and systemic racism, renewed attention should also be focused on the many injustices within the U.S. correctional system. Black and Brown Americans are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States.
Much of the public outrage has been directed at officials who have been unable to prevent the fatal spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons throughout the country.
But in addition, there were too many governors who were unwilling to reduce prison populations by releasing individuals who posed no threat to public safety. As a result, nearly 200,000 incarcerated Americans have been infected as of November 2020 according to the Marshall Project.
And the criticism of the correctional system does not stop with the prison officials themselves but extends to the full spectrum of private companies that provide services to correctional agencies. Among those that find themselves in the crosshairs of the growing critical scrutiny are a group of specialized telecommunications companies.
These companies provide two connected services to the corrections industry: communications tools that people in jails and prisons use to connect with family and people on the outside (telephones, but also modern devices like digital tablets); and security and investigatory tools built into the communications tech, which help correctional agencies monitor for criminal activity.
On the surface, these may appear to be both good things. The problem, however, comes in how these products are paid for. See, it’s not the correctional agencies that pay for these services – companies charge for every call made, but it’s the families and friends of the imprisoned making the calls or accepting the calls that end up paying those bills.
It obviously costs money to build, install, maintain, and secure this technology. But, not all or even most of this money that is paid for those services goes to the telecoms themselves.
What most people do not know is that the government takes a cut of the revenue – in many cases, the lion’s share. For example, in 2018 incarcerated individuals in Connecticut paid $13.2 million for phone calls. Nearly 60% of that money went to the state.
Because of this model, the cost of making a call or sending an email from a correctional facility can be much higher than on the outside. And these costs can vary widely from state to state. In 2019, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, the average cost of a call from a jail in New Jersey cost $1.26, while that same call in Arkansas cost $14.49.
Prison telecom companies have faced strong criticism in recent years from elected and community leaders for their role in these charges. I have expressed concern about the way these contracts put an unreasonable financial burden on families in our communities. In my civil rights career, I have experienced firsthand how prisoners and their families are taken advantage of and financially challenged by jail and prison regulated services.
And at least one of these companies, Securus Technologies, appears to have taken this criticism to heart. In 2017, Securus was acquired by Platinum Equity, which is headed by Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores. At the time, many of us would have reasonably assumed that a private equity firm would simply extract as much value from the company as possible and then sell it at a profit.
But that’s not what Gores did. Instead, he appears to have undertaken an effort to change some of the problematic business practices that have long plagued the correctional telecom industry. At the beginning of this year Gores brought in a new CEO for Securus, who committed to lowering their prices and improving the services they provide to incarcerated Americans.
If you approach such a promise with a healthy dose of skepticism, you’re not a
lone – especially knowing the history of this industry. But for the moment, Securus seems to be making good on its promises.
According to company updates, Securus has so far reduced the average cost of calls by 30%. It has renegotiated lower rates with 56 correctional agencies this year. It has been offering free calls and other communications to incarcerated individuals impacted by the pandemic – over 30 million to date.
Was that enough? No. Far from it. But it was an important start, and one that no other company in the prison telecom space has so far matched. Yet Gores appears to have been singled out for criticism by a group of advocates for the incarcerated. Sometimes even those with good intentions can find themselves caught up in the systemic problems of the correctional industry.
Those attacks came to a head this year when critics demanded that the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) remove Gores from its board. They called him a “prison profiteer,” despite the fact that – as the LA Times notes – Gores had pledged 100% of his personal stake in Securus to helping reform its operations.
LACMA eventually bowed to pressure and, to avoid further friction, Gores resigned his seat. This is exactly an example the consequences of poor judgement in public advocacy that does not actually help bring relief to the families of the mass incarcerated. Did LACMA improve the life of a single incarcerated individual by doing so? It did not.
To be clear, the prison telecom industry remains in need of serious reform. We need to hold Securus and other telecoms accountable for changing their harmful business practices. But if we want people to do the right thing then we need to acknowledge when they actually strive to do the right thing.
So where do we go from here? The solution is not, as some have suggested, to eliminate these companies altogether. The services they provide are needed, and few believe they could be offered at the same quality or efficiency by the public sector. And the security tools offered are necessary as well – among other things, they help prevent attempts to cause harm from within prison walls, from harassing victims to operating criminal activities on the outside.
But individuals who have been sentenced to prison for a crime are already paying their debt to society. They should not also be forced to pay to help plug holes in the budget of a local warden or sheriff.
State and county officials need to stop collecting “commissions” on these services, and where possible they should contribute public funds to reduce the costs of these communications tools for incarcerated Americans.
Securus also needs to go further. Although they have lowered costs, their products remain far too costly for some of the most vulnerable members of our society. And their competitors need to follow suit – including the biggest operator in this space, Global Tel Link.
While our democracy remains politically, socially, and economically divided, we all have just witnessed the transformative power of the vote by millions of people who care about the future of our nation.
Ultimately, correctional telecom companies depend on contracts from state and local correct agencies. The heads of those agencies are appointed by elected officials. Criminal justice reform was on the national ballot.
Voters must now hold all elected officials accountable on a wide array of issues including the issue of improving the telecom services offered to prisoners and their families. Stop the exploitation of prisoners and their families. Prison wardens, county sheriffs, and state officials resolutely should stop taking advantage of incarcerated people.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and Executive Producer/Host of The Chavis Chronicles www.TheChavisChronicles.com& This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
December 03, 2020
By Dr. John E. Warren
Publisher, The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint
As we rapidly approach the availability of three vaccines to deal with the COVID-19 virus, the topic at hand becomes, who will get the vaccine first and whether or not those designated as being of greatest risk will actually take the vaccine when made available? Among the skeptics, African American’s are at the top of the list and not without reason.
In 1932, Tuskegee Institute partnered with the Public Health Service to conduct what was called, “The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”. The study was done in the hopes of justifying a treatment program. This was before the development of penicillin, which became the preferred treatment for syphilis in 1947. There were 600 total participants. 399 men with syphilis, and 201 men in the study without syphilis, who were the placebo group. Both were without the knowledge of what they were being treated for. They were told it was “bad blood”.
The study was done without the benefit of “Informed Consent “ on the part of the participants; they were never offered treatment or penicillin. There was no effort to cure the illness for more than 40 years. Not only were they never given treatment, they were not permitted to quit the study.
In July 1972, an Associated Press story about the study caused such a public reaction that a review of the study found it “ethically unjustified” and stopped the study at once. A class action lawsuit on behalf of the men was filed a year later, which led to an out of court settlement in 1974 for 10 million dollars. The U.S. government created the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program (THBP) to give lifetime medical and burial services to all living participants.
In 1975 wives, widows and offspring were added. In 1995, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) was given responsibility for the program and the last study participant died in 2004.
The following highlights the evil of this whole effort. In 1940, efforts were made to keep the men from getting treatment under the military draft effort.
In 1947 the U.S. Public Health Service established “Rapid Treatment Centers” to treat syphilis, but men in the study were not treated. In 1969, CDC reaffirmed the need for the study and gained support of the local medical societies (American Medical Association and the National Medical Association chapters) to continue the studies.
But this abuse of medical ethics in the treatment of Black people also extended to Black women. In 1960, the state of North Carolina enacted a voluntary sterilization law. This law provided the state with the ability to sterilize those thought to be feeble-minded. This was primarily aimed at African American women on welfare.
This practice went from 23% of Black women being sterilized in the 1930s to an increase of 64% between 1964 and 1966.
One of the most well-known cases of this was revealed by the victim, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a renowned Civil Rights leader. She spoke of her own involuntary sterilization at the Sunflower County Hospital in Mississippi where she later testified that 6 out of 10 African American women going into that facility were involuntarily sterilized.
Against such history, it is not hard to understand why African Americans would be reluctant to take the vaccine, even though we are among the highest risk groups in the nation. There are questions today as to what degree African Americans are currently a part of the trial groups for each of the COVID-19 vaccines and where they are geographically located. Are there any differences in side effects that should be made known?
Between these questions and the conduct of President Trump suggesting the use of bleach and other crazy ideas to treat the virus, it's going to take more than a new President for some to feel safe. Many feel it’s going to take a major public policy campaign just to save lives.
December 03, 2020
By Ray Curry
Secretary-Treasurer, UAW
These days, like the old Ray Charles song says, I’ve got Georgia on My Mind. We should all be thinking of Georgia because come January 5, the state is positioned to make a tremendous change for the better — a change that will give President-Elect Joe Biden the opportunity for real legislation and real reform; for lasting and potent legislative buy-in to make laws once again (and it has been a while now!) in service to the people.
Laws that address issues important to the working men and women of this nation: healthcare, the economy, health and safety, equal justice for all, the environment, and the right to organize.
And a real plan to take COVID-19 head on with a coordinated nationwide policy to address the ill effects, including relief for both businesses and the millions of sidelined workers who are just trying to hang on.
Come January 20, 2021, we will have a new President of the United States in Joseph Biden and the first female African American Vice President Kamala Harris. This election was a hard-fought, intense race full of division and emotion. But in the end, as a record number of voters turned out (in person and via mail), it was a fair and legal vote that now gives us a leader who has been a long-time friend of labor, and an individual who represents much needed progress for this country. I want to thank all my brothers and sisters from coast to coast for making sure our voices were heard in this election.
Now however, we must collectively stand and fight with him. Simply put, there is still much to do to ensure that the President-Elect has the ability to accomplish his restorative plan. Biden’s plan includes working together during this pandemic to find solutions, battling the current devastating economic and health care challenges, and continuing our fight for workplace rights and safety.
Accomplishing this critical work must include control of the Senate — which has been held by Republicans since 2015, and has in that time, often served as a barrier to progress rather than a forward-thinking channel for progress. And it is down in Blue Georgia (never thought I would be saying that, but Sister Stacey Abrams knew) that we have the opportunity to remove that roadblock.
What’s a runoff?
On election day, neither of Georgia’s Republican senators drew a majority vote. This moves both of their races to special rematches taking place in January. The outcome will determine control of the Senate and if we have a legislature that works together for working people — and with our President. Or it will determine that the political stalemate we have now continues; that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will keep things in the same go nowhere circle we have had for years.
A runoff election is required, under Georgia law, if candidates do not receive a majority (50% or more) of the vote. The Georgia runoff will occur on January 5, 2021. The results — depending on who wins — will swing the Senate majority to Democrats or leave McConnell and the Republicans in charge.
It’s the difference between do something or do nothing.
What’s at stake?
Georgia Senate Democratic candidates, Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, will go head-to-head with Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in two separate runoffs. Warnock and Ossoff have been endorsed by the UAW because they are the best choice for UAW members, retirees, and their families. They are the best choice for America, and the best choice for labor.
Both candidates understand that two essential things that must happen, and must happen quickly to address the economic and health care crisis in this country:
• From the very beginning, Ossoff and Warnock have taken the pandemic very seriously. Together — working with the new president and fellow Congressional members — they will work to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control to save lives and get people fully back to work.
• Warnock and Ossoff also understand that the economy isn’t working for working people. They will work to repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. They will encourage bringing back our jobs from overseas. Additionally, they will protect the Social Security and Medicare benefits we earned, defend our pensions and 401(k)s, and make it easier for workers to organize and form a union.
On the flipside, their opponents — Loeffler and Perdue — both support more than $24 billion cuts to Social Security and $500 billion cuts to Medicare. More importantly, they have both used the dire circumstances of a global pandemic to their benefit as both were caught red-handed making insider stock deals based on information about the severity of the pandemic that they kept from the public. Not exactly a move that gives you faith in their ability to serve on the behalf of the citizens they represent.
So, the good trouble that we must make this time around is going back home to the place where good fighting got it its name. This is a historic moment in our history and Georgia holds the key. If Democrats gain both Georgia seats, the 50-50 tie in the Senate will mean that Vice President-Elect Harris will cast tie-breaking votes, carrying out a pro-labor agenda.
Given the rise in COVID-19 cases, President-Elect Biden must be able to make immediate decisions and pass legislation that address the challenges we all face and make tough decisions to protect all working Americans.
Georgians, please vote!
So please, if you live in Georgia, participate in this election. If you do not live in Georgia, consider finding a way to make your own good trouble: assist through phone banking or offer assistance to organizations supporting the Warnock and Ossoff campaigns.
On January 5, the entire country is looking to Georgia to make an essential difference in the future of our nation. We are looking to voters to elect candidates that will protect retirement security, rebuild our economy and implement a national plan to respond to the pandemic. The outcome of this election will affect every single person in this nation for decades to come.
Let us send our hearts and minds south this January. Let us get back to work for working men and women. Let us take an old sweet song and make it America’s, “Georgia On My Mind.”
October 29, 2020
By Ray Curry
International Secretary-Treasurer, UAW
Vote! I cannot say it any simpler or say it enough.
Vote to restore government for the people, by the people; vote to preserve our threatened middle class; vote for America’s workers by voting for an America that works; vote up and down the ballot and vote union blue.
Sisters and brothers, I have to say that never before has there been so much at stake for the American people than in this election. From constitutional court decisions affecting human, civil and worker rights, to the ability to safely exercise our right to vote ... all are on the line. Our current way of life, fought for and worked for over so many decades, is being threatened. Ruled by the rich for the rich sure is not looking out for those of us who work for a living.
Together we can readjust America’s light to again shine on a united future — the way it was intended to be.
Here is what makes your vote so critical. Consider the issues that your ballot will impact by helping to elect representatives who support labor and the American worker —
Who represents us in the courts?
Our courts are deteriorating quickly to an anti-worker mindset. Over the past four years, two very conservative Supreme Court justices have been appointed, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, moving the Court further to the right and further away from protecting our rights. And a third anti-labor judge will likely be railroaded through in advance of the election. In addition, more than 50 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, more than 135 judges for the United States District Courts, and two judges for the United States Court of International Trade have been appointed during the current term.
In consequence of these numerous court appointments, our courts are turning in a detrimental way against fair labor practices and human rights. Through your vote in November, you can help fend off further anti-labor control of decisions and policy.
Who is watching out for us?
Since the 2016 election, there have been several disturbing anti-labor appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the government agency that enforces labor law as it relates to collective bargaining and unfair labor practice charges. This includes officials like William Emanuel, a labor lawyer at the notorious anti-worker law firm Littler Mendelson. He is, most certainly, no friend to labor and his voting record shows it. And we must not forget the appointment of Eugene Scalia last fall to Secretary of Labor. The New Yorker magazine has called him “a wrecking ball for labor.”
And consider that on February 6, 2020, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would significantly restore workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively. However, the Senate has failed to even allow a vote, let alone, pass the PRO Act. The UAW has endorsed the PRO Act and we must work to see that it is passed.
Protect our right to vote
Your very right to vote in this, and every election is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It is a fundamental aspect of living in this democracy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, making our way to the polls has been a concern for many. Mail-in and absentee ballots are a viable option for a safe, secure election. However, we have seen:
• Challenges to states’ rights and roles in overseeing the presidential election.
• Opposed election aid for states to run safe elections with
COVID-19 restrictions in place.
• Opposition to funding to make elections safe and secure, including a $25 billion emergency funding bill for the U.S. Postal Service and a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election funding to the states.
Keep us safe
That the current management of the pandemic favors the Chamber of Commerce interests over that of the labor force is clearly illustrated in the response to the COVID-19 crisis. Among the anti-worker, anti-safety steps taken:
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) refused to issue any required measures — via an emergency temporary infectious disease
• standard — to protect workers from the virus.
• OSHA is also failing to enforce the Occupational Safety and Health Act during the pandemic. Despite over 9,000 complaints from workers about unsafe working conditions from COVID-19, the agency issued only four citations for failure to protect workers as of August.
• Petitions by unions representing affected workers and by the AFL-CIO for mandatory rules to protect workers from exposure to the coronavirus on the job were rejected.
Guide us out of this crisis
This terrible pandemic has been devastating on so many levels and recovery from the economic, public health and employment impact of the virus will take years. We need strong leadership to guide our country out of this crisis. Now, more than ever, it is time to use our right to vote to let our voices be heard. When UAW members vote, when labor votes, we win. If we stay home, we are silent and powerless and we enable those who would work against us.
Brothers and Sisters there are no excuses. Voting by mail is easy and safe. Dropping your ballot at the city clerk’s office or at a voting ballot drop box is easy and safe. You can vote early. Or you can do it at the polls on November 3rd. But however you choose to vote, please vote. Don’t let anything or anyone stand in your way.
Our way of life is at stake.