Current and former prisoners are suing Alabama, fast food franchisees and other beneficiaries of the state's prison labor system they say is a “modern-day form of slavery” where incarcerated people are forced to work for little to no money at the profit of public and private entities.

Joined by labor unions and a prisoner rights advocacy group, the 10 plaintiffs, who are all Black, said Alabama and private companies profited hundreds of millions of dollars through forced prison labor, in violation of anti-human trafficking laws, the Alabama Constitution, which was recently amended to outlaw all involuntary servitude as punishment for crime, and the U.S. Constitution. 

They also accuse the state of a racist, exploitative parole system to maintain a supply of incarcerated laborers for profits. 

“Although they are trusted to perform work for the State, local governments, and a vast array of private employers, some of the same people who profit from their coerced labor have systematically shut down grants of parole,” court documents filed this week said.

Filled in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, the complaint draws parallels to the post-Civil War “convict leasing system,” where Southern states “leased” prisoners to private railways, mines and plantations for profit, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. The prisoners received no wages and worked in dangerous, often deadly work conditions.

Defendants include franchisees of McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s, and Burger King, along with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, state Attorney General Steve Marshall, the Alabama Department of Corrections, the chair of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, and local governments such as the cities of Troy and Montgomery, Jefferson County and the Alabama Department of Transportation. 

Plaintiffs contend Alabama gains more than $450 million annually through the “forced labor scheme," and about 575 private employers and more than 100 public employers have "leased" incarcerated labor from Alabama prisons since 2018.

Working seven days a week with no pay

Lakiera Walker, a Black woman, was incarcerated in Alabama from 2007 until this year. She labored for long hours with no pay and faced threats of solitary confinement, working in housekeeping, providing care for inmates who were mentally disabled or ill, stripping floors, and unloading trucks, the lawsuit said. Walker was regularly required to work seven days a week, and for many years, two shifts a day. 

She also worked outside the prison doing roadwork for $2 a day, at a meat warehouse, and at a Burger King, court documents said. At one job, she was sexually harassed by a supervising officer and faced retribution for reporting it. 

Court documents point out prisoners are subjected to chronically hazardous treatment. A scathing 2019 report by the U.S. Department of Justice outlined unsafe and unsanitary conditions, rampant drug use, violence, and a systemic culture of excessive force. The federal government sued Alabama and the state Department of Corrections over its prison conditions in 2020. 

Plaintiff Robert Earl Council, currently imprisoned at the Limestone Correctional Facility, has been in prison for 29 years, the lawsuit said. He is a founder of the Free Alabama Movement, a prisoner rights group seeking the end of mass incarceration and forced prison labor.

Council suffered more than eight years in solitary confinement, including one five-year stretch, after starting the prisoner rights organization and resisting forced labor, court filings said. Guards and prison officials have physically and psychologically abused him, according to the lawsuit, including beatings, death threats, and harassment.

The Alabama Department of Corrections declined to comment on the lawsuit when reached by USA TODAY.

Prison labor across the country

From hand sanitizer in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic to miles of razor wire for Texas’ contested border barrier, prison labor is a hidden element in goods produced across the nation.

Of the more than 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union said two out of three are workers. But unlike the rest of the country, imprisoned laborers are "stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse," the civil rights group said.

ACLU found imprisoned workers earn, on average, 13 to 52 cents per hour nationwide. In seven states, most workers are not paid at all, and the government can take up to 80% of wages for "room and board," court costs, restitution, and other fees, the report said.

But for businesses, state government, and prison systems, the furtive source of labor produces significant profits. Nationally, incarcerated workers make more than $2 billion a year in goods, the ACLU said, and more than $9 billion a year in services for maintaining prisons.

The cost to American taxpayers for public prisons and jails is steep at $80.7 billion, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. The nonprofit think tank estimates that 4,000 companies profit from mass incarceration, while people lose an average of $500,000 worth of earnings over a lifetime by being incarcerated.

Prison labor system was historically tied to slavery

After slavery was abolished in 1865, Southern states instituted a series of oppressive laws called “Black Codes” that restricted Black people's freedom of movement and gave white Southerners the legal justification to continue wringing forced labor out of them.

It was a crime for a Black person to carry a firearm, drink alcohol, or gather in small groups past sundown, said Michael Ross, a history professor at the University of Maryland. By enforcing these racist and petty laws, Southern states were able to wrangle thousands of Black people into the justice system.

Any trivial offense could be met with harsh sentences and prison time, which fueled the convict leasing system. The practice allowed businesses and farmers to essentially borrow convict workers from the state, meaning a petty crime, or none at all resulted in Black people providing free labor for the post-slavery Southern economy.

Today, Black people are disproportionately incarcerated at a far higher rate than their white counterparts. ACLU Alabama found that Black people, who make up 26% of the state population, account for more than half of the incarcerated population, citing a May 2021 Alabama DOC report. Nationwide, the Sentencing Project found young Black people were four times more likely to be detained or committed to juvenile facilities than their white peers.

2018 strike:Prisoners nationwide protest 'modern-day slavery'

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