Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Labor South roundup: Rural Mississippi private prison may be getting asylum seekers as it benefits from Trump's migrant crackdown; Coca-Cola strike on Gulf Coast ends with no contract but hope for better negotiations


It’s time for another Labor South roundup: Strange goings-on at a private prison in rural Mississippi, and the Teamsters end their strike at Coca-Cola facilities in Mississippi and Alabama without a contract but hope for better negotiations
  
Trump inaugural contributor CoreCivic gets nearly 1,400 new federal detainees and maybe hundreds of asylum seekers, too

(This includes updated information from the earlier post. More updates may be coming)

News broke in late June that the Tallahatchie Correctional Facility in the Mississippi Delta town of Tutwiler is getting 1,350 new federal detainees, courtesy of the U.S. Marshals Service. That’s the kind of thing Wall Street loves to hear, and accordingly CoreCivic—formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America---saw a 20 percent increase in the value of its stock between early April and late June.

Shares of its stock rose 3.5 percent on the very day President Trump signed an executive order ending the migrant family separations on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Michelle Liu with Mississippi Today.

Analysts say Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented migrants crossing the border has been a boon to CoreCivic and other private prison companies.

What makes the Tutwiler story even more intriguing is that a source who has had dealings with the private prison told Labor South this month that as many as 500 of its latest residents may be asylum seekers who have committed no crime but sought asylum in the United States due to war, terrorism or other threatening issues in their home countries.

Earlier media efforts to get CoreCivic and the U.S. Marshalls Service to clarify who would be housed at the facility after the Marshals Service deal have been unsuccessful.

CoreCivic spokesman Rodney King in Nashville, Tennessee, told Labor South this week, however, that the Tutwiler facility houses inmates and detainees from six federal, state and local partners, including South Carolina, Wyoming, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and those who came through the U.S. Marshals Service. "Regarding asylum seekers, CoreCivic does not enforce immigration laws or policies or have any say whatsoever in an individual's deportation or release. Decisions related to asylum status are solely the discretion of our government partners," King said in an August 30 e-mail letter.

The Labor South source says asylum seekers at the Tutwiler facility come from Latin America, Africa and Asia, with many coming from India and Nepal.

The Tallahatchie facility was the scene of a violent riot in 2004 in which inmates set fire to a portable toilet, clothing and mattresses. Another CoreCivic facility in Mississippi, the Adams County Correctional Center, was the scene of an inmate riot in 2012 with inmates taking guards hostage. One correctional officer died in the incident. The next year CoreCivic lost its contract with the state of Mississippi to operate another facility in Wilkinson County.


Coca-Cola workers end their strike with hope for better negotiations

Workers at Coca-Cola Bottling Company facilities in Mississippi and Alabama are hoping the 11-day strike that ended last week will ultimately lead to a better contract with the company even though they went back to work without an agreement.

Some 250 Teamsters with Mobile, Alabama-based Local 991 went back to work after protesting the company’s treatment of new employees—their pay is up to $8 an hour less than what it had been in the past—plus higher insurance costs. “We needed to go back to work,” union steward David Stephens told Real-Time News from Alabama. However, “I think the company realized that they needed us back. Progress is being made in negotiations.”

Picketing during the strike took place at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Mobile and Ocean Springs on Mississippi's Gulf Coast, plus two other sites.

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