Who We Are
We, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), are a prisoner-led organizing campaign of the Industrial Workers of the World committed to offering direct aid and solidarity to the imprisoned in their struggles to end prison slavery and win back a say in their own lives. We struggle to end prison slavery along with allies and supporters on the outside. On September 9, 2016 we were part of a coalition of inside and outside groups that launched the largest prison strike in US history. In 2018, there was another nation-wide prison strike in the US that also spread internationally. Resistance to prison slavery continues with work stoppages, slow-downs, hunger strikes, and other acts of resistance to business as usual.
But it will take a mass movement – inside and out – to abolish prison slavery. We have hundreds of incarcerated members in over 15 US states, and our membership continues to grow. We invite all those who agree with our statement of purpose to join us and to start a local group in their prison, city, or trailer park. IWW membership is free to those incarcerated, and is based on income / ability to pay for those on the outside, with rates of $6/mo. (hardship) $11/mo. (standard) and $22/mo. or $33/mo. for those who are able.
Prison Slavery
Incarcerated people are legally slaves as per the 13th Amendment which abolished “slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.” We are literally and legally slaves. If you’ve been to jail or prison you’d know we are treated like slaves.
Billions are made annually off our backs. Outrageously priced or grossly inadequate privatized ‘services’ like health care, food, phone calls, assault our humanity – they feed us like animals, suck our families dry, and when sick leave us to die. The government spends as much as an elite college tuition per person to keep each of us incarcerated, but this money does not develop us as human beings, reduce crime, or make our communities safer.
They also profit from our labor. At least half of the nation’s 1.5 million of us imprisoned in the United States have jobs yet are paid pennies an hour, or even nothing at all. Many of us perform the essential work needed to run the prisons themselves – mopping cellblock floors, preparing and serving food, filing papers and other prison duties. Others of us work in “correction industries” programs performing work in areas such as clothing and textile, computer aided design, electronics, and recycling activities. Some of us even sub-contract with private corporations such as Sprint, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, and many more.
As incarcerated workers, we are some of the most exploited workers in the country. There is no minimum wage for prison labor. The average wage is 20 cents an hour, with some states not paying a wage at all. Up to 80% of wages can be withheld by prison officials. There are very few safety regulations and no worker’s compensation for injury on the job. While in prison, we try to earn money to support our families, ourselves, and pay victim restitution yet these wages prevent us from that. We believe that as workers we are guaranteed the same protections and wages as other workers.
We are working to abolish prison slavery and this system that does not correct anyone or make our communities safer.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
In addition to abolishing prison slavery, we are also fighting to end the criminalization, exploitation, and enslavement of working class people in general. We are part of the larger Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a revolutionary union that has been fighting oppressive systems for over one hundred years.
When first founded, the IWW was the only union open to all – regardless of race, gender or nationality. Fierce campaigns waged by miners, dock workers, and agricultural workers, and more led to significant gains in wages and workplace conditions.
Our revolutionary politics and refusal to sell out led to massive and widespread crackdowns by the US government as part of the Red Scare, and beyond.
Despite this, our union persisted and to this day continues to organize for a new world. In recent decades, the IWW has seen a resurgence in both membership and workplaces formally (and informally) organized under our banner.
IWOC Preamble
Prisoners are on the front lines of wage slavery and forced slave labor where refusal to work while in prison results in inhumane retaliation and participating in slave labor contributes to the mechanisms of exploitation. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has consciously grasped the importance of organizing prisoners so that prisoners can directly challenge prison slavery, work conditions, and the system itself: break cycles of criminalization, exploitation, and the state-sponsored divisions of our working class. At the same time, the prison environment and culture is a melting pot of capitalistic and exploitative tactics and all forms of oppression. These poisons must be challenged in prisons, institutions, and in all of us through organized working-class solidarity.
Members of the IWW have created the IWOC, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, which functions as a liaison for prisoners to organize each other, unionize, and build solid bridges between prisoners on the inside and fellow workers on the outside. Prison is a setup, a big business, there to make money off the People. Neither the setup nor the slavery inside of prisons can be combated without the conscious participation of prisoners and the working class on the outside through mutual aid, solidarity, and the building of working relationships that transcend prison walls and the politics of mass incarceration. The IWOC has been actively reaching out to prisoners while at the same time prisoners have been reaching out to the IWW for representation and assistance in building a prisoners union. The IWOC has taken up the cause and is helping prisoners in every facility organize and build a union branch for themselves, which will together form a powerful IWW Industrial Union.
To achieve this cage slave / wage slave alliance, the IWOC is accepting IWW membership applications from prisoners who agree with the IWW Constitution and believe that, to truly change prison conditions, prisoners must be organized and working towards such goals with the help and support of the working class on the outside. Prisoners will be full-fledged members of the IWW with their own local prison branch to maintain and develop and will have the same rights and responsibilities of members on the outside. However, due to the exploitative nature of the prison system, prisoners are granted free IWW membership and will not be required to pay dues while in prison. Outside members of the IWOC will be in direct communication with prisoners and provide organizing training, support, and guidance in union building, solidarity, and collaborative actions.
We have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains. In every ghetto, barrio, trailer park, and prison cell, working-class solidarity will prevail!
IWOC’s Statement of Purpose – July 31, 2014
1. To further the revolutionary goals of incarcerated people and the IWW through mutual organizing of a worldwide union for emancipation from the prison system.
2. To build class solidarity amongst members of the working class by connecting the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers to workers struggles locally and worldwide.
3. To strategically and tactically support prisoners locally and worldwide, incorporating an analysis of white supremacy, patriarchy, prison culture, and capitalism.
4. To actively struggle to end the criminalization, exploitation, and enslavement of working class people, which disproportionately targets people of color, immigrants, people with low income, LGBTQ people, young people, dissidents, and those with mental illness.
5. To amplify the voices of working class people in prison, especially those engaging in collective action or who put their own lives at risk to improve the conditions of all.