Ten current and former Alabama prisoners say they were forced to participate in work programs that raised money for the state while providing cheap labor to public- and private-sector employers, including franchisees of Burger King, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

A complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama describes a system in which prisoners who refuse to work are threatened with disciplinary action, such as solitary confinement or citations that could interfere with their parole.

The plaintiffs, who also include several labor unions and the criminal justice nonprofit Woods Foundation, say the system amounts to a “modern-day form of slavery” comparable to convict-leasing programs that existed after the Civil War. They accused more than two dozen defendants — including state officials, government agencies and private employers ― of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, among other charges.

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The plaintiffs “have been entrapped in a system of ‘convict leasing’ in which they are forced to work, often for little or no money, for the benefit of the numerous government entities and private businesses that ‘employ’ them,” the complaint alleges.

The complaint was filed as a class-action lawsuit, meaning the court will have to certify the plaintiffs as a class before the case can proceed.

The office of Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R), the state’s Department of Corrections, Burger King, McDonald’s and KFC parent company Yum Brands did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The catch with ‘work release’

One of the plaintiffs is Robert Earl Council, also known by the moniker Kinetik Justice, a prisoner who co-founded the Free Alabama Movement, a labor group for incarcerated workers that has sought to use work stoppages inside Alabama prisons to “combat the multibillion dollar Prison Industrialized Complex,” according to the group’s website.

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Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said the plaintiffs are prepared to take on the state for what they view as a clear violation of human rights. Appelbaum and his union were part of an effort to organize Amazon workers in Alabama, which sputtered in 2021 after losing a crucial vote. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. The Post’s interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, sits on Amazon’s board.)

“When people’s labor is owned by others rather than the workers themselves, they’re unable to obtain the rights that they deserve,” Appelbaum said in an interview.

So-called work release programs, common across the country, let prisoners who have shown good behavior or are otherwise trusted leave confinement to work for specific shifts. But states can take a hefty share of the wages. After fees and taxes are deducted, the workers’ net wages can be as low as $2 per hour, according to plaintiffs.

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In Alabama, the state typically takes 40 percent, while other fees can be applied for things like transportation.

According to the class action complaint, some 575 private employers have “leased” incarcerated labor through this system since 2018, which plaintiffs say is enough to generate more than $450 million annually.

The private companies named as defendants include food-and-beverage distributors, manufacturers, fast-food franchisees and a laundry-cleaning service. Prisoners working at fast-food restaurants work run-of-the-mill jobs such as fry cooks or others, while those in manufacturing firms sometimes carry out skilled duties such as metal fabrication, welding and precision die casting, according to the class action complaint.

Government agencies benefit from their work, as well. The city of Montgomery, named as a defendant, procured at least 343 incarcerated laborers to work in various capacities over the first eight months of 2023, according to the complaint.

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Plaintiff Lakiera Walker said in an interview that she entered the prison system at 19 when she was 6½ months pregnant. She was incarcerated on assault charges but later received parole after the plaintiffs in her case testified on her behalf, according to Walker and an attorney representing her.

During most of her incarceration, which lasted from 2007 until 2023, Walker says she was made to understand that she had to work or face punishment. Refusing to work would have given her a “disciplinary,” she said, which would go on her record and affect her chances of parole. She also worried that refusing to work could lead the prison to withhold the regular “family day” that allowed her to see her son for an extended period.

She described a “job board” at the prison where work would be assigned. “There is no way around going to the job board,” she said. “If you don’t go [to work], you’ll go into solitary.”

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So she worked long hours, typically seven days a week, she says. Her jobs inside the prison included uncompensated work stripping floors, helping in the prison’s hospice unit and unloading chemical trucks, according to the complaint. A work release program landed her with a job in industrial freezers and later at Burger King, where she served burgers alongside teenagers and other free “civilians.”

To take a sick day, “you had to go through the officers, and it was like you’re taking money out of their wallet if you didn’t go to work that day,” Walker said in an interview.

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