TO CHALLENGE AND SUFFER: THE FORMS AND FOUNDATIONS OF
WORKING INMATES' SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice Guilbaud
Presses de Sciences Po | Sociétés contemporaines
2012/3 - No 87
pages 99-121
ISSN 1150-1944
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Fabrice Guilbaud, « Contester et subir : formes et fondements de la critique sociale des travailleurs détenus »,
Sociétés contemporaines, 2012/3 No 87, p. 99-121.
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This document is a translation of:
Fabrice GUILBAUD
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Based on fieldwork conducted in seven French prisons, this paper examines
the social criticism expressed by inmates (both male and female) about their
employment conditions and wages. The gaps among their conditions and the
common law (including absence of employment contracts and social protection
and piecework wages), the inmates’ experience of work (in prison as well as
before incarceration), and their knowledge of social issues give rise to repertoires
of contention focused on low wages and production rates. Despite the prohibition
of the right to strike, social criticism can turn into collective action. Inmates are
aware that they suffer the denial of rights. Their speech and practices show that
they consider themselves as employees and act as such.
P
eople detained in French prisons are encouraged to get involved
in activities in compliance with a mission of integration or reintegration. These activities include paid work, professional training, education, and recreational, sporting, or cultural activities.
Following various sociological surveys of education (Salane
2009), work (Guilbaud 2008), and sport (Gras 2005), these activities are now recognized as also responding to a need to maintain
order, since “keeping a maximum of inmates occupied is a token of
calm” (Chauvenet, Orlic, and Benguigui 1997, 78). This probably
explains why the adoption of a “requirement to be involved in an activity” in the law of November 24, 2009 was not contested by prison
officers. In fact, its wording reinforces the assumption of undisputed
benefit: “Any convicted person is required to practice at least one
suggested activity [. . .] so long as its purpose is an individual’s reintegration” (Article 27). Article 33 specifies that “professional activities” should be framed by a “letter of engagement” defining “working
conditions and pay.” However, it is explicitly stated that this letter of
engagement is not the equivalent of an employment contract.
Is it in fact accurate to describe the activities performed by inmates in return for pay as work? The answer is yes if we consider
that this work “is not intrinsically different from other activities, except for the fact that it is regulated by a system that controls the
individual” (Rolle 1971, 76). The services, the objects produced in
workshops, and the so-called “general services” tasks respect this
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To Challenge and Suffer:
The Forms and Foundations of Working Inmates’
Social Criticism
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
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In my fieldwork (see Box 1), the work of inmates was framed
in terms of the sociology of work. Inmates were initially examined
as workers, not criminals, and prison as a place of production, not
simply of detention. This is related to the work of Patricia O’Brien
(1988, 19), a historian of nineteenth-century French prisons, who
believes that “prison [is] a place of work and prisoners [are] workers,” and to that of Karen Legge (1978, 6), who in her study of
workshops in British prisons, preferred to take the viewpoint of the
“industrial sociologist rather than the penologist.” This theoretical
framework removes the different status of working inmates by relating their situation to that of salaried workers while highlighting the
specific aspect of symbolic denial on the part of the penal institution, which does not recognize their status as workers.
BOX 1
METHODOLOGY
This paper uses field studies conducted in five men’s prisons between 2004
and 2006 and two women’s prisons in 2009 and 2010. The research was
funded by the Public Interest Group Mission de Recherche Droit et Justice. The
selection of prisons studied combined two criteria:
1. Length of sentences and level of security. Short-stay Prisons (maisons
d’arrêt) lock up people awaiting trial as well as those sentenced to less than
a year or in the process of completing time served, while detention centers
(centres de détention) and maximum-security prisons (maisons centrales) group
prisoners with longer sentences. Prisoners deemed more dangerous are placed
in prisons, while detention centers focus on reintegration, providing more activities and operating an open-door regime (with cells kept open during the day
and closed at night).
2. Management method (public or semi-private). The 1987 law on the
public penal service created semi-private prisons. Here, the State retains its
sovereign mandate over surveillance and management and delegates overall
operations, including technical maintenance, laundry and catering services, and
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definition because they are the fruits of labor organized by the user
company (a process known as “concessionary” or “in delegated
management” – see Box 2), or directly by the Penal Administration.
Inmates who work are not forced labor since the requirement to
work was abolished in 1946 for remand prisoners and in 1987 for
convicted prisoners. Nor are they domestic workers or independent workers. Rather, they could be seen as employees since they are
placed in a subordinate position and paid for their work. In France,
another indicator of being in employment is the deduction of social
security contributions from inmates’ pay (Friot 1997), since 1946
for work-related accidents and since 1976 for health insurance, maternity, and old age.
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
transport, training, and work to a private company. Delegation of this mandate
is contracted for several years in an oligopolistic market dominated by the Suez
and Sodexho groups. In 2012, about one in four prisons was of this type
(Guilbaud 2011).
Assembling these criteria led to selecting one prison (managed by the State,
as are all prisons), two short-stay prisons, and two detention centers (with both
management methods for each type of institution). I then extended the research
to include women inmates by studying one short-stay prisons and one detention
center.
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Although paid activities in prisons fulfill the criteria used in a sociological definition of work, the legal conditions applying to inmate
employment and their wages could not be further removed from
ordinary law. From a legal perspective, the most glaring realities are
the non-application of the Labor Code and its two fundamental principles, namely the employment contract and the right to strike, and
the general practice of piecework wages. Sociology and criminology
research conducted in various European countries has highlighted
these paradoxes between the apparent normalization of work and
the discrepancy with ordinary law, in France and Germany (Shea
2005), Belgium (Dufaux 2010), Austria (Pilgram 1999), and Great
Britain (Simon 1999). In the United States, although legal experts
are questioning the boundaries of the labor market based on prison
work (Zatz 2008), a great deal of published research focuses on the
connections between slavery, forced labor, and prison labor in the
fields of economics (Bair 2008), political philosophy (Davis 2006),
and history (Blue 2012).
In legal terms, the discrepancy between prison labor and ordinary law and the evocation of slavery is found in France in what
inmates say about their work. By examining this discourse, I will
analyze the subjective element involved in inmate work by looking
at inmate behavior (both verbal and physical) in reaction to the legal
and material conditions of their labor. I will attempt to show the
reasons behind inmates’ actions of resistance to the control exercised
by the institutional and legal structures that define and regulate their
situation.
To clarify this situation, data on levels of pay and legal conditions on compulsory work affecting inmates will be provided in the
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The data gathered combine workshop observations (7 to 12 weeks per institution), documentary evidence (activity reports, workshop regulations, service
notes, concession agreements, wage records), and interviews. About 20 interviews were conducted with inmates per institution, or 137 interviews (45 of
which were recorded), members of the Penal Administration’s regional delegations, and private and public staff members supervising the workshops (65).
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
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first part. Following this, based on research carried out in five penal
institutions for men and two for women (see Box 1), I will report on
the discourse used by working inmates to describe and denounce
their social situation, which is based on their experience of work in
prison as well as on previous professional experience. Their political and social awareness also provides the tools for social criticism
in the sense that speaking out (often through word of mouth) denounces legal and wage inequalities as exploitation1 and implicitly targets equality through ordinary law. A third section, based on
the observation of a strike, will examine the possibility of translating this condemnation into collective action. This is typical of the
French “repertoire of contention” (or the “national and autonomous”
model) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Tilly 1986). If we
aggregate this type of action with other non-protest collective action
(such as a slowdown) and individual actions denouncing exploitation, we see emerging a variety of possible actions (Offerlé 2008) in
the social space of a penal institution. Inmates consider themselves
to be workers like other workers and therefore seek to behave as
such but come up against the limitation presented by their lack of
freedom to protest, something that is specific to the conditions of
their life and work.
BOX 2
LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DATA ON FOUR KINDS OF PENAL EMPLOYMENT
The “professional activities” of inmates are defined in terms of four types of
prison-based paid employment, including professional training. Inmates hold this
employment at various stages of life in prison, which is determined initially by the
length of their sentences. These four types make up the “occupational system” of
working inmates (Tripier 1991, 164).
Although the sustainability of the indicators2 provided by the Penal
Administration debatable, it is nevertheless possible to detect trends in the data
provided (see Annex 1). In 2010, 24,001 prisoners performed a paid activity.
This corresponded to a 39% activity rate, compared to 46.5% in 2000. This rate
1/ This is the cornerstone of Marxist social criticism, which runs through twentieth-century social history. The
concept of “social criticism” can be found in the work of many writers and schools of thought falling within
Marxist trends (especially the Frankfurt school and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu). Its use in the social science
literature often concerns the role of intellectuals and of sociology in formulating social criticism (Grignon 2008;
Lahire 2002) in support of social movements involving dominated social groups and of those groups defending
them (such as labor unions, associations, or newspapers). Boltanski and Chiapello (1999) also develop this idea
in order to identify another form of critique of contemporary capitalism, namely “artistic criticism.”
2/ The definition of activity rates is incomplete even though the numerator is well known, namely an annual
average calculated on the basis of the monthly averages of jobs both inside and outside prisons (on parole or on
outside assignments). However, the denominator is not always obvious since it often corresponds to the prison
population (inmates and those not incarcerated, i.e., those with electronic tags) as of January 1. However, the
rates have sometimes been calculated based on the incarcerated population as of July 1, sometimes including
the French Overseas Departments (DOM) and sometimes excluding them. In fact, between the annual peak
(July) and the annual dip (the following months), the difference can be as high as 5,000 people as including or
excluding DOM inmates leads to a variation in the denominator of 3,000 to 4,000 individuals.
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Fabrice GUILBAUD
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
was higher in detention centers and in maximum-security prisons than in short-stay
prisons, reaching 53% and 32% respectively in 2010, with the difference varying
from 18% to 24% between 2000 and 2010. During this period, although an exact
correlation cannot be established between the fall in the activity rate and the increase in the number of people incarcerated, the population grew by 22.2% (from
56,441 to 66,089) whereas the amount of employed people rose by only 8.2%.
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2. Concession of penal workforce and semi-private management (37.7% of
total employees in 2010). This enables the Penal Administration to turn the inmate
workforce over to private companies, which are responsible for organizing production (materials and technical support), while the Penal Administration provides
the premises and the number of inmates required and guarantees workshop security. The work offered by the concessionary companies, most commonly in shortstay prisons centers, involve subcontracted work for small manufactured goods,
performed manually at the end of the production line (e.g., bagging hardware
parts, sticking samples into magazines, etc.). The Penal Administration calculates
inmates’ pay while the concessionary companies handle financial matters, which
include billing for the workforce and energy costs.
Semi-private management. In this context, work is organized by a company
developing products for profit, often by making itself available to businesses
needing to subcontract work. The goods made in detention centers more commonly involve semi-industrial work performed for large businesses (e.g., machinery set up by car manufacturers), while those produced in short-stay prisons are
the same as that carried out for the concessionary companies.
3. Industrial management of penal institutions (5.2% of total employees in
2010). This approach develops products for its own benefit and subcontracts
work. The management and monitoring of activities have been delegated to
the Penal Employment Service under the authority of the Penal Administration
director. This form of management is almost exclusively set up in detention centers and maximum-security prisons and makes 55%-60% of its turnover by selling
products to the public sector, 40% to 45% of which are for internal use in prisons.
In particular, inmates make uniforms, shoes, and other accessories for guards,
including metal beds for solitary confinement cells.
4. Professional training (18.6% of total employees in 2010). A large variety of professional training bodies are involved in the public penal system (at
the Penal Administration’s request) and in semi-private prisons (at the managing
companies’ request). Inmates are paid €2.60 per hour and training is offered for
30 hours per week and is paid approximately €270 per month.
LEGALISTIC ILLUSIONS OF THE RIGHT TO WORK
AND OF THE RIGHT TO MINIMUM WAGE
The working conditions of inmates are regulated by the Code of
Criminal Procedure. The law regarding prisons has been described
as “soft, blurred [. . .], and ultimately weak, but its weaknesses
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1. General services (38.4% of total employment in 2010). This describes
all service and maintenance work needed for prison operations. The Penal
Administration pays inmates at a rate set by the central administration and related
to the technical level required, with jobs spread over three classes of daily wage
(Class 1: €13.21; Class 2: €10.71; Class 3: €8.01; 2009 tariff).
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
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The concept of an “illusion of legality” is useful here in describing legal regulations on work, specifically the letter of engagement
and the prison minimum wage, which nowadays enable the Penal
Administration to show progress in standardizing the working conditions of inmates to those of paid work. This legal formality, which
mimics ordinary law, is part of an attempt to “upgrade the organization” (Salle and Chantraine 2009, 116). In fact, these regulations
are framed in such a way as to give no guarantee of employment
or minimum wage for working inmates but instead give significant
economic flexibility to employers.
■■ Letter of Engagement: A Substitute for Employment Contracts
The letter of engagement is signed between an inmate and a Penal
Administration representative. Formally, it looks like a contract and
is often described as such by organizers of prison work:
June 2009, in the office of senior staff in the prison: The senior officer
responsible for work calls in a Romanian inmate allocated to general services (cleaning) for the last three days; he welcomes her and tosses off:
“Your work is satisfactory and the trial period has been successful. So you’ll
sign the employment contract. Can you read and write?” [she smiles and
says]: “A little.” [laughing] “It’s not important.” She asks for confirmation of
the right place to sign and signs two copies.
This document specifies the inmate’s assignment, hours of work,
and payment method (by the piece or the hour) and also restates
disciplinary regulations, i.e., that any inmate, even if supervised by
private overseers, remains ultimately under prison authority. Like a
real contract, the letter of engagement includes a trial period. For
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have so far provided a relative illusion of legality” (Herzog-Evans
1996: 275). In Herzog-Evans’s expert legal opinion, the law serves
the aim of inmate control and seeks to regulate their behavior.
Generally, its weakness is due first of all to its roots, which are regulatory (consisting of orders and circulars) rather than legislative, yet
this “usually suffices to give the appearance of fundamental legality”
(278). However, legal developments over the last 20 years, court
interventions, and the arrival of “legal entrepreneurs” in the internal
affairs of prisons have fed a legalization process that is tending to
turn the law into a resource for inmates in certain areas (Rostaing
2007). Yet legal standards are not applied consistently, depending
instead on how inmates and the institution make use of them in
each social context (Salle and Chantraine 2009).
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
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example, Laurence, who had 20 years of professional work before
being incarcerated, told of her first experience of work in prison:
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The letter of engagement means that inmates are classified as being in work but are called on a day-to-day basis according to the
needs of employers and are paid only for what they produce. Some
inmates do not immediately understand all the repercussions of not
having a real employment contract, especially the younger ones,
who have had less professional experience before prison than most
of the others.4
■■ A Standard of Pay Undermined by Piecework Wages
Prison work is organized on a three-speed wage system (see
Annex 2). Between 2002 and 2010, the work supervised by the Penal
Administration (i.e., general and prison industrial services) saw increases in wages of 34.3% and 17.6% respectively, while over the same
period, wages paid by concessionary companies increased by little
more than one-sixth of the minimum wage, rising by 5.6% whereas
the minimum wage went from €2.99 to €3.97 (or 32.8%). This scale
is fixed by law relative to the annual increase in the minimum wage.5
In reality, the legal standard is made inoperable by the practice of
piecework wages because the frequency of work serves as an adjustable variable and company supervisors6 increase this frequency so
3/ Each interviewee’s situation in terms of the job market is given at the time of incarceration.
4/ In the investigation of male inmates by INSEE (2002), only 15% had ever worked. In my own corpus, only
four men (out of 92) and five women (out of 41) had work experience before being incarcerated.
5/ This amounts to 45% of the minimum wage for production activities: 33% for general service in Class 1,
25% in Class 2, and 20% in Class 3 (Law D. 432-1 of 12/23/2010).
6/ In the prisons surveyed, this was the case in companies with fewer than 50 employees with experience in
packaging activities. Two out of 12 were exceptions: a valve manufacturing company with more than 500 employees, and a company managing semi-private prisons acting as a concessionary company.
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So they put us at a table [. . .] and then they watched us to see if we were
doing the work right, [. . .] we were on trial for three days, three days for us
to say: “okay, I like it, I’ll stay,” or three days for . . . well, it’s not a contract,
it’s an order, you get three days, and after three days, you get the piece of
paper already signed.
So, you thought it wasn’t a contract?
It’s got nothing to do with it! [. . .] In fact, it’s . . . well, it’s cheating! [. . .]
You don’t get a choice. It’s an order. We’re told we get three euros and a few
cents an hour, but in fact we’re not paid . . . We’re not paid by the hour!
We’re paid by the piece.
– Laurence, aged 46, first incarceration, pre-trial detention, in prison
for 24 months, unemployed3
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
that an increase in the minimum wage does not affect their production costs. All they have to do is increase the corresponding cost
of an increase in the minimum wage by as many units per hour.
Whereas the minimum wage should be a threshold for pay, it is
rarely reached even though the legal principle is respected since a
few workers always manage to achieve the required rate or even
exceed it.
Two examples of inequalities created by the practice of piecework
wages can be used to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the wage
standard. These consist of surveys of the performance rate on two
tasks conducted in the presence of inmates who either confirmed or
corrected their scores after half a day.
Observed Task
Assembly and packaging of deodorizing balls
(2 balls per case)
Making cardboard boxes for packaged
pastries: folding, putting on a lid, and
taping
Theoretical Daily Pace
18 cartons with 12 cases (= 432 balls
assembled, or 83/hour).
270 (or 52/hour)
Cost per Piece
€1.094/carton
(= €19.70/day)
€0.06 (= €16.20/day)
Number of People Observed
and Length of Observation
11 inmates: 6 consecutive half days
22 inmates: from beginning to end of
activity, 16,000 boxes produced in
5 half days
Daily Production Reported
– 2 at 30 cartons
– 3 between 18 and 20 cartons
– 6 between 10 and 12 cartons
–
–
–
–
–
–
Comments
The difference in wages is of the
order of 1 to 3 (between €10.90 and
€32.80), 2 are over the quota by
more than a third, 3 are at the correct
rate, and 6 are below it (between
1/4 and 1/3 of the theoretical rate)
The difference in wages is of the order
of 1 to 4 (between €6.60 and €24.50).
Only 6 reached or went beyond their
quota, while 6 were between 2/3 and
the quota and 10 did not attain 2/3 of
the theoretical rate.
4
6
6
2
3
1
between 110
between 150
between 200
between 270
between 300
at 408 boxes
and
and
and
and
and
150
200
270
300
400
boxes
boxes
boxes
boxes
boxes
Calculations based on a production time of 5 hours and 15 minutes per day (break times not included).
The legal position of working inmates is characterized by the
regulations that mimic ordinary law. Going along with the prohibition on employment contracts, a second rule prohibits all collective
rights in terms of work. “Although membership in cultural organizations is allowed in prisons, it is stated (though never explicitly)
in a document that unionization is prohibited” (Auvergnon and
Guillemain 2006, 166). This second prohibition creates a unique
right: a right to work that ultimately comes down to a right to
refuse or accept work and to receive pay for it. But what do the
inmates say?
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Two Observed Examples of the Performance Rate – Men’s Prison, February 2005
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
LOW WAGES AND LACK OF SOCIAL PROTECTION:
TOPICS FOR SOCIAL CRITICISM
■■ Economic Exploitation: “We Struggle at Work
and Get Nothing”
In general, the awareness of being underpaid is shared by all. In
short-stay prisons, where wages are lowest, the economic exploitation is felt and expressed most strongly:
You have to see how we struggle at work and get nothing!
– 18 months’ sentence, aged 40, eleventh month in detention, third
month of incarceration, unemployed
Wages are often the focus of inmates’ initial comments, with the
rate per piece being central. In penal institutions where inmates
sometimes work without knowing the price of work even though
many of them know that companies are prohibited from withholding this information (a regulation sometimes explicitly stated in the
letter of engagement), the matters at stake are quickly relayed among
them, as in the following conversation:
The price per piece had not been communicated at the start of new production. Three inmates questioned during manufacture testified as follows:
(1): No, we don’t know, we just started. We don’t know. It’s always like
that, unless it’s work we’ve done before.
(2): They want to see how fast we go. There are some who go as fast
as they can, others who don’t. They want us to go full tilt and then give us
the lowest price.
(3): But it’s not so easy to complain. They have you cornered, you can’t
fight them. If we don’t like it, they say they are 40, 60 others waiting to do
the job.
– Field Journal, March 2005, short-stay prison
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The range of statements and expressions of indignation by both
male and female inmates focus on the injustice of wage exploitation and the lack of social protection. The disparity between working conditions and pay is so significant compared to what goes on
outside that inmates quickly focus on the differences and are not
taken in by legal artifice even if they have never been in work prior
to incarceration. Their social criticism and the forms it takes are the
result of conditions in prison, which vary depending on the type
of prison in which the inmates are incarcerated, the level of their
wages, and their professional experience elsewhere. Although they
are very conscious of being exploited, the difficulty – even the impossibility – of fighting this openly is felt even more strongly.
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
Beside the pressure from organizers on the price per piece, pressure from the “reserves” is an additional obstacle to any form of
struggle. In such an environment, the condemnation of rates and of
timings by supervisors is often virulent, especially since the measures do not take account of all the realities involved in the actual
work:
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The work rate is also criticized in detention centers, particularly
because of hidden timing, though we should again make a distinction between short-stay prisons and detention centers. The loudest
condemnation was heard in the former, which means that the feeling
of being exploited is fairly strongly linked to the level of pay. This
feeling is less strong where pay is least poor, even though there is still
talk of exploitation. Yet making demands still means losing one’s job:
It’s okay, we’re not that exploited. If I make €300 a month, I can use in
the cafeteria, that’s enough to live on [. . .] We can’t control it [i.e., pay]. We
can’t go on strike. No one says anything, or else you lose your job.
– 2-year sentence, aged 35, seventh month in detention, second incarceration, temporary worker
In semi-private penal institutions, inmates, who understand7 that
the State pays companies to be responsible for them and that these
companies organize the production and consumption system are
even more critical than in State-run prisons. In particular, the recycling of income from work into expenditure in food supplies is
judged severely:
What disgusts me a little [. . .] is that here its Cedexho [a fictitious
name for the management company] that takes care of finding us work,
paying us, and then feeding us. And we’re always forced to buy anything
that makes life better. They make a huge profit on food. I’m really angry
with them about that. I don’t think we were sentenced so that people can
steal from us. And they are stealing from us, and on top of that they don’t
pay us very much. As far as I’m concerned, it’s exploitation. That’s the best
way of describing it.
– 15-year sentence, aged 50, seventh year of detention, first incarceration, mail carrier
7/ These are found especially in prisons or among those who have been incarcerated for a long time (over
a year).
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There’s the problem of the work rate: when they set the rate, it’s impossible. They take out their stopwatch, they watch the work for 20 minutes
and then work out the rate for the day like that. But they don’t time everything. You have to get the pallet, weigh the stuff, you see? And then you get
tired. 10 minutes isn’t the same as 4 hours!
– 11 months on pre-trial detention, aged 32, second incarceration,
security guard
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
According to another inmate, in semi-private penal institutions,
the sense of being exploited can be increased by the feeling of being
cheated by being paid in products from the cafeteria. In one prison,
I was able to compare a basic basket made up of 50 of the most frequently requested products. Excluding in-store promotions, it was
8% more expensive than in the nearest supermarket.
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I shouldn’t complain because I see those who work in general services.
They work as long as we do, but they’re not paid enough! It’s not paid
enough. I think we should all be paid the same [. . .] Because whether
you work in the kitchen or do household work, they put in the hours,
and it’s hard, it’s tiring, and if it was all the [same], then there wouldn’t
be a difference.
– Maryse, aged 48, first incarceration, 25-year sentence, sixth year of
detention, public service administration officer
While women believe that catering and household work should
be better paid, this topic did not come up with men, among whom
general services work was not considered because it was part of
household tasks and therefore “women’s work,” according to one of
them. This difference between men’s and women’s prisons replicates
the traditional view that devalues domestic work in the sexualized
division of labor (Chabaud-Richter, Fougeyrollas-Schwebel, and
Sonthonnax 1985).
■■ Social Exploitation: “You Have a Right to Be Paid,
but You Don’t Have a Right to Anything”
Some elements of social protection are tied to prison work.
Although social contributions are calculated based on wages (such
as sickness, work-related accidents, widowhood, and old age), these
do not involve financial compensation in case of sickness or workrelated accidents. This fails to comply with the purpose of social
security contributions since unlike general taxation, these confer a
right to financial remuneration in case of unexpected events (Friot
1998, 39-44). The justification offered by the Penal Administration is
that all inmates (whether working or not) have free access to healthcare and are therefore remunerated in kind. However, most inmates
do not understand their legal position clearly. Although they know
that ordinary labor law does not apply, their pay slips look a lot like
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Although contesting economic exploitation is expressed similarly
by the women and men I met in prisons, it is very different in general from service work (household, catering, etc.). According to one
of these inmates, equal pay should be the rule:
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
those they received before incarceration, and the deduction of social
security contributions often adds incomprehension and confusion:
There are old-age things, accidents at work, I don’t know what, there’s
even the word “premium,” which is useless. I don’t really understand it.
That pay slip shouldn’t exist.
– 20 months on pre-trial detention, aged 21, second incarceration, temporary worker
It’s as if we were working illegally really, and that’s surprising because
what happens if you get hurt? It’s not seen as a work-related accident. You’ve
got a right to pay, but you don’t have a right to anything! René cut his finger
here. He got nothing, and he lost his job! If you have an accident at work,
that’s it. You get a smile, a Band-Aid, and off you go! [. . .] On the other
hand, you get to work two minutes late, and you get reported. And watch
out, you work from January 1 to December 31. No vacations. Nothing.
– 20-year sentence, aged 50, ninth year of detention, second incarceration, industrial turner/milling machine operator
Questions connected to social protection were usually raised by
older inmates and those with long sentences. Because of their professional careers, they knew the system better for having benefited
from it before going to prison. In addition, some of them wondered
how their years of work in prison would be accounted for in their
retirement benefits when they were freed:
There’s a guy who got out for his retirement. They told him that working inside meant nothing. It wasn’t counted [. . .] I’ve already seen guys
who’ve had accidents. They got nothing. So the pay slips are useless and
will be useless later on.
– 18-year sentence, aged 45, eighth year of detention, third incarceration, worked in printing
Nor is the inmates’ social criticism focused only on levels of pay
and social protection. Rather, it also targets the quality of work and
the question of recognition (Guegen and Malochet 2012, 55-76).
Without exploring this aspect further, which would take us away
from the focus of this paper, we should note how obvious this becomes when inmates themselves refer to “dirty work.” Something
that fuels indignation is the awareness that they are doing jobs that
do not exist, or no longer exist, outside of prison:
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Whereas these regulations should bring the inmates’ social status
closer to that of employed workers, they seem instead to strengthen
the sense of being exploited. A convicted man in a detention center
pointed out what he saw as a contradiction between the lack of social rights – the equivalent of working illegally – and the reality of
the discourse of work:
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
In any case, it’ll clearly be completely useless when we get out. This kind
of job doesn’t exist outside. You have to be realistic anyway. Everywhere
you look nowadays, factories are closing. They even fire honest people, so
us . . . It’s screwed up, how do you expect us to find work? [. . .] As far as
I’m concerned, it’s clear, even if it was interesting work, I don’t think we’d
be able to get a job. When you think of the level of unemployment, I don’t
think so.
– 20-year sentence, aged 26, third year of detention, second incarceration, unemployed
FROM CRITICISM TO COLLECTIVE ACTION
What the social criticism of working inmates focuses on (wages, social protection, and purchasing power) corresponds to the
traditional features of the employment-wage relationship, including production and consumption (Boyer 1986). Their wage status
is the subject of strong condemnation using powerful symbolic
language, including the word “slavery.” However, was generalized
indignation and condemnation of wage status as expressed to the
interviewer also expressed collectively, or did it remain an individual matter?
■■ Modern Slavery, Exploitation, and Outsourcing:
The Discourse of Condemnation
The word “slavery” is often used along with “exploitation,” including in informal conversations, this one between two inmates,
(1) and (2):
(1): Work as an activity, that’s okay. You get up in the morning and it
gets you out of your cell. But that’s it. Otherwise it’s exploitation.
(2): Yeah. It’s modern slavery!
(1): Frankly, €100 this month. For what . . . 150 hours of work.8 If that
isn’t exploitation, what is it? It helps to keep going, that’s all!
– Field Journal, January 2005
8/ This is an exaggeration. In this particular case, the number of hours came to about 100.
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Before the completion of his sentence, this inmate can already
imagine how difficult it will be for him to get a job as this is getting harder. He has never worked outside of prison, and he can
anticipate the stigma attached to being a future ex-convict. His
view of the future and of the fate of inmates is linked to specific
economic and social realities, namely unemployment and factory
closures.
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
Recurrent comparison with slavery is more noticeable among
women in the short-stay prison:
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As a result, the word gets around. Although it may have been
used on television programs about prison work, it is principally
used by prisoners themselves in the constant turnover of the prison’s population.9 Wherever it originates, it is used a great deal by
women in this particular prison. The fact that many of them are
black, foreign nationals,10 or French citizens of postcolonial immigrant extraction is probably not unrelated to this symbolic rallying call in their social criticism of work, something that constitutes
a reminder of France’s colonial past (Ndiaye 2006). According to
Coura, who works as a controller (paid the minimum wage rate)
and receives a regular salary:
Well, as a controller, I think I’m well paid to . . . as a controller. But it’s
true that for the girls working at the table, it’s slavery, no doubt about it!
– Coura, aged 31, pre-trial detention, first incarceration, incarcerated
for 28 months, receptionist
Hawa and Coura are immigrant’s daughters from Mali and Senegal.
Samira, who is the daughter of a mixed French-Algerian couple and
had an erratic professional career, seems to equate “slaves” with “the
exploited” in her indignant statements about being badly paid despite the work she provides and the job’s repetitiveness:
So, we’re not slaves! Wait a second! We do the same thing all morning!
An entire morning, can you imagine, putting pipes together! [. . .] The client, he gives you work and he scrimps, and the other guy [the concessionary] he scrimps, right? We’re not stupid, you know! I know the world of
work, you know! And they’re all the same. They scrimp . . . We’re exploited!
– Samira, age 36, 2½-year sentence, fifth incarceration, unemployed
The words “slavery” and “slave” also indirectly lead to the old
question of forced labor and its connection with hard labor and
9/
Average incarceration time is 6.5 months (2009 Activity Report).
10/ This was specific to this particular women’s short-stay prison, where 61% (out of 254 inmates in 2010)
were foreign nationals, compared to 34% in the men’s quarters (in the two other men’s short-stay prisons, the
rates were 15% and 33% respectively). This can be explained mostly by drug trafficking and the proximity of
the prison to international travel points through which “mules” cross borders, that is, women with drugs in
their luggage or bodies.
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I tell you, we’re being cheated!
Do you talk about this?
Well, among ourselves we do! We say we’re slaves, we say it all the time!
[. . .] All the time.
– Hawa, aged 22, first incarceration, 3½-year sentence, sixth month of
incarceration, salesperson
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
prisons (Rusche and Kircheimer 1939).11 In these indignant expressions, it seems as if colonial history and penal history echo
each other.
Another kind of condemnation of exploited worker status is expressed by comparison with countries where labor is cheap. Thus,
an inmate in a prison asked me ironically whether I could see his
eyes “slitting up,” mimicking a Chinese stereotype (stretching his
eyes and smiling in an exaggerated way). An inmate in a short-stay
prison raised the issue of exploitation and, when talking about wage
satisfaction, used Romanian inmates as a comparison:
Inmates sometimes analyze their situation by comparing it with
outsourcing and with the lack of labor law, like this detention center
inmate in 2005:
The problem of outsourcing, if [Prime Minister] Raffarin wants to, he
can fix it. Sometimes I call us Moldavians, and it makes me laugh that here
in jail, we can be more profitable than Romanians [. . .] In prison, there’s
no labor law.
– 15-year sentence, aged 40, seventh year in prison, first incarceration
The social criticism expressed by inmates is therefore not only
based on their experience of misery and low wages but is also backed
by a condemnation of economic exploitation and the inequalities
between their situation and that of employees protected by labor law
and by comparing their status with that of other types of exploited
workers.
■■ Right to Work and Collective Action
Since inmates cannot call on the usual repertoire of industrial
action provided in labor law (Mouriaux 1992, 97-9), the most common form of resistance in workshops is the slowdown, most usually
practiced individually by setting oneself a quota or sometimes collectively in order to negotiate the piecework rate (Guilbaud 2008).
11/ According to these authors, who analyzed the relationship between delinquency, the economy, and
penal repression in a historical materialism approach, forced labor and manufacturing in prisons emerged
with the development of the trading economy. Later, once the [French] Revolution establishing the principle
of free labor, forced labor in penal systems became less common in the nineteenth century and detention for
remedial purposes was preferred.
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We’re badly exploited [. . .] when you see the work you do, you’re not
paid! Only Romanians are happy to work in the workshop.
– 3-year sentence, age 24, seventeenth month of detention, first incarceration
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
This behavior is therefore close to that observed in other contexts
where workers are paid by the piece (Roy 2006) and is typical of
the struggles of industrial workers (Dubois 1979). When collective
action takes place, there can be a strike, in which case the workplace
is occupied. However, in prison, this is expressed through a disciplinary offense, namely a refusal to return to one’s cell since there are
no formal options for taking the demand further.
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One Wednesday, I learned that a workshop had stopped working.
Twelve inmates had been hired by a workshop to make household rags
for the Cedexho company (an operator of semi-private prisons). [. . .] As
the month was coming to a close (with wage accounts being closed on
the 28th day), inmates had just heard what the piece rate would be (that
is, 500 pieces per day to reach the minimum wage of €3.18 per hour, or
€19.08 for six hours).
Supervisor: “They’re refusing to accept the rates set by the concessionary, the boss has to see them one by one.”
Why?
“The objective is to make them understand. Either you work, or you
leave. Because we’ll find other guys. They’re saying they do 270 pieces a
day, and when they were paid by the hour, they were cool.” [During the
first few months, they were paid in professional training hours from Penal
Administration funds].
– Summer 2004, prison
That morning, the concessionary company foreman came by accompanied by the work leader and one of the workshop supervisors, who said to the official in charge of the work:
Now they’re refusing to go back up if the foreman doesn’t come back to
see them. I’m calling the director. They’re not going to start giving us a hard
time! If they don’t want to work, they can shove off!
The confrontation took place between the inmates and the foreman (F), who was accompanied by two workshop supervisors who
were told by their superior to gather information on the “leaders.”
An inmate (I) spoke:
(I): We don’t want to work for €6 or €10 a day. It’s impossible. We can’t.
We won’t even earn what we got when we were training.
(F): I just get given the rate. I’m answerable to my boss, I can’t do anything about it.
(I): Well, you tell your boss or your client to come and talk it over with
us. Okay, we understand. If you can’t decide, then tell those who can to
come down here.
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In the course of my research, I observed two strikes, including
the “battle of the rag makers:”
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
(F): That’s not going to be possible. I’ll call but it won’t change the rate
[. . .] These are the rates used in another prison and those guys are okay
with them.
(Another inmate): No, that isn’t true. I know that in X they make this
stuff and they’re better paid. [Was this a bluff, or word-of-mouth information gained from phone calls with family or friends?]
(F): It’s over for today anyway. The merchandise needs to get there
tomorrow or the next day.
The confrontation thus ended. The supervisors informed their
boss that two inmates had spoken up, especially Brahim, who
seemed to be a “leader.” The boss replied:
That afternoon, the deputy director saw the inmates one by one.
At the end of the day, a concessionary company representative came
to talk to the foreman and asked to see the deputy director. As it
happened, I was meeting with him that day. I left the workshop at
the same time as the representative (R). I asked him what was going
to happen.
(R): In any case, we’re already making that product at X and everything’s fine at that rate.
Under the same production conditions?
(R): Yes. Or just about.
He then went into the deputy director’s office and came out a few
minutes later, looking satisfied. I learned that he had put “a gun to
his head” because, the deputy director admitted, either the contract
was signed under those terms or the company would leave.
The two strikes I was able to observe took place in detention
centers and prisons, as is usually the case with collective slowdown
practices. This means that the length of sentences and the time spent
in prison and in work promoted collective action. In fact, there can
be a continuum between different types of action (Offerlé 2008,
197), from expressions of indignation to concerted collective action.
However, this presupposes a gradual dissemination of social criticism through talk about individual circumstances through discussions between inmates during daily work and in daily life in prison.
The moment of struggle is invariably the same: when work begins and the foremen set the piece rate, power struggles are initiated.
Of course, during the strike described here, the flexibility allowed by
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Okay, tomorrow, in any case, don’t let him come down. I’ll go and talk
it over with Orge [a fictitious name for the deputy director] and see what
we can do.
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the concessionary contract allowed the concessionary company representative to impose the rate he wanted on the director. Flexibility
is not only economic since it also means delegating social aspects
to the Penal Administration, just as any company policy outsourcing the workforce aims to pass on legal and social responsibilities
to subcontractors (Morin 1994), especially in terms of health and
safety (Thébaud-Mony 2007). Although the management company
in semi-private prisons agreed to open a workshop in the prison at
the Penal Administration’s request,12 it had no intention of giving in
to pressure from inmates, and supervisors were responsible for managing the outcome of the conflict. This took place in the summer, at
a time when paid training stopped and the level of unemployment
in the prison was high (20%). In a high security prison, in which
inmates are serving long sentences13 and inmate turnover is low, the
structural opposition between supervisors and inmates involves the
individual management of inmates, which does not leave room for
collective negotiation.
In this conflict, the strikers wanted to start negotiating with “the
client” or with “those who made decisions.” This desire to negotiate is part of contemporary changes in the “repertoire of collective
action” suggested by Offerlé (2008).14 To break up a protest, the
authorities float the threat of “decommissioning”15 and call inmates
in individually, a common technique used in factories for imposing
discipline (Linhart 1978, 105). In fact, there is great fear that a strike
will spread to other workshops since “any rebellion is intrinsically
dangerous to the entire prison community” (Chauvenet, Orlic, and
Benguigui 1997, 83). It is therefore important to dissuade inmates
so that rebellion does not become contagious: “If they get what they
want [. . .] it snowballs and you can’t stop it,” said one of the supervisors, even if it means stopping production (through a prison
lockout). In an interview, the Deputy Director, although sympathetic
to the questions of need and wages, interpreted the protest in the
following way: “In fact, these demands go beyond wages, they’ve got
more to do with prison.” Thus wage demands are not interpreted at
face value, and workers are relegated to their status as inmates.
12/ When looking for economic development, the Penal Administration finds it difficult to recruit concessionary companies. Companies managing prisons and anxious to preserve their partnership and renew
contracts for delegated management sometimes accept to go into prisons that request their services.
13/
90% are serving 10-year sentences or more, and 20% are serving life sentences.
14/ “We should not pretend that the same repertoire lasted once revolutionary passion had died down [. . .].
The repertoire [. . .] changed to the extent that other elements were brought in, for example second opinions
and negotiation” (Offerlé 2008, 189 and 197).
15/ In prison jargon, “commissioning” and “decommissioning” are synonyms for hiring and firing. These
terms are part of a disciplinary regime of favors and sanctions in which work can be taken back as readily as
it was granted.
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Fabrice GUILBAUD
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
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Moreover, when inmates manage despite the prohibition to express collectively the traditional demands of employed workers,
these are not recognized as such by the authorities but relegated
to prison matters. Therefore, in addition to being legally excluded
from ordinary law, the inmates’ status as workers is also denied them
symbolically by being relegated to that of mere inmate. Such denial
of recognition is an additional obstacle to collective action.
Yet working inmates manage to express social criticism that leads
to protest. In fact, they are not fooled by the legalistic illusion that,
in a parody of labor law, forbids them access to the status of employee and tends to deny the fact that they are workers. Their criticism
is voiced using political discourse (“slavery”), economic discourse
(“exploitation”), and social discourse (“lack of social protection”).
By identifying with workers who are exploited in other parts of the
world where industry has relocated and comparing their situation
with ordinary labor law and with their past and present experiences,
they demonstrate that they are aware of being denied a right and that
they consider themselves to be workers. Yet although they behave
like typical workers, the risk of losing their job if they strike is far
more immediate (since there is no dismissal procedure and no possibility of labor union support) and is compounded by being a disciplinary offense, which can sentence them to a longer time in prison.
Fabrice Guilbaud
CNRS
CURAPP-ESS/UMR 7319
fabrice.guilbaud@u-picardie.fr
16/ I argue here that the growing importance of the concepts of dignity and human rights in the welfare state
explains the tendency to direct social policies toward individual rights in the name of the right to work, which
undermines labor law.
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In the absence of a labor law, it is very difficult to promote a right
to work (Bec 2007, 73-80)16 because the latter does not imply the
possibility of protest. However, as Supiot (2007, 314) reminds us,
in the welfare state, a law that cannot be contested is not legal since
the law must “enable the weak to turn the weapons of the law back
against those who use the law to exploit them.” In prison therefore,
there is an illusory right to work that perpetuates “ordinary despotism” (Chauvenet 2006). This explains the fact that collective action
is rare and slowdowns are more common since disciplinary regulations “appear to be incapable of preventing more subtle forms of
rebellion” (Sykes 1958, 28).
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
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XXI
SOCIÉTÉS
CONTEMPORAINES
No 87
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Fabrice GUILBAUD
WORKING INMATES’ SOCIAL CRITICISM
Fabrice GUILBAUD
ANNEX 1
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Source: Author’s graph, based on Penal Administration data
ANNEX 2
Net average monthly salaries by employment type* (left-hand scale) and gross hourly minimum
wage( right-hand scale) from 2002 to 2010
Source: Author’s graph based on Penal Administration data and minimum wage annual circulars.
* The Penal Administration provided no data on professional training, and only the average hourly amount (€2.25) is
known.
SOCIÉTÉS
CONTEMPORAINES
No 87
XXII
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Employment rates for inmates by prison type(left-hand scale) and prison populations
(right-hand scale) from 2000 to 2010