Back in May we started a series on Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and how we feel it unfairly compensates workers while making large amounts of money off the US tax payers. This story is another entry in that continuing series.
Over the last two weeks we have heard from several workers at the Stewart Detention Center who are angry. Apparently after going years without raises and a promise of better days ahead there hard work was rewarded with a "sorry we gotta let you go."
From what we hear the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency required CCA staff members to pass a credit report and this led to a very large number of staff members being terminated. With Stewart county being such an economically disadvantaged area it really comes as no surprise that many stewart county residents might have bad credit scores.
It's very ironic to this blog that a company that always seems to pride itself on putting it's facilities in areas of high unemployment and poverty continues to have policies that make hiring the workers in those areas not employable. Yet at the same time it tries to convince poverty stricken communities that it's going to come to town and make everything better. If CCA is such a great neighbor and money making partner then one can only wonder why it has to court towns with dismal economic outlooks in the first place. I'm sure it has nothing to do with taking additional government handouts for increasing employment in low income areas. It's really amazing though that it gets by with playing a shell game by putting facilities in these areas and then hiring so few of the people that were there before the facilities were built. I mean really how can you count jobs given to people who commute from other locations as a local employment benefit?
This blog feels that the reality of the situation is that CCA pays significantly less than the public corrections sector. We feel that much of Corrections Corporation of America's profit comes from short changing workers in both pay and benefits. If ICE is going to hold these workers to the same standard that government employee's are, then wouldn't those employees (And the taxpayers and the communities there facilities are located in) not be better off if they were just employed by ICE in the first place? Apparently when it comes to ICE mandated CCA job requirements at SDC an apples an apple even if it's really a rotten one.
Keep in mind that all opinions expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own opinion.
