Question: Where in the United States can you find a call centre worker who is never absent, is always on time, is ready to work for a fraction of the going wage in the industry and will stick with his job for at least three years?
Answer: In the prisons, of course.
Some US firms are now turning to prisons to hire inmates as telemarketers and save US jobs from going overseas to low-wage nations like India, China and the Philippines.
A report in The Guardian said that the prison inmates are model employees for the US call centre industry: they speak courteously on the phone, are never late or absent, and gladly work as low as $130 a month. Also, in an industry which is plagued by high employee turnover, the prisoners are like a boon as they work for at least three years.
Perry Johnson, a Southfield, Mich.-based consulting company, is one such company which chose to remain in the United States rather than join a host of telemarketing companies moving offshore.
Earlier, Perry Johnson had planned to move to India, says The Guardian. But the company chose instead to open a call centre inside the Snake River Correctional Institution, a sprawling razor wire and cinder block state penitentiary a few miles west of the Idaho line.
"The center's opening followed a yearlong effort by the Oregon Department of Corrections to recruit businesses that would otherwise move offshore, and echoes a national trend among state and federal prisons to recruit such companies," said the newspaper.
"This is a niche where the prison industry could really help the US economy," The Guardian quoted Robert Killgore as saying. Killgore is director of Inside Oregon Enterprises, the quasi-state agency that recruits for-profit business to prisons.
"I'm really excited about this. We keep the benefits here in the United States with companies where it's fruitless to compete on the outside," said Killgore, reported The Guardian.
Prison authorities have praised work programmes aimed at enhancing inmates' skills and self-respect and keeping them from falling back into criminal activity.
But some workers union have criticised the move as taking jobs away from the private sector. Critics say the idea of retaining American jobs in prisons is a violation of minimum wage laws and an affront to free workers.
Killgore, however, says that such protests are debatable as the jobs would have moved out of the country anyway.
The national prison labor trade groups support the idea. Ten states including Oregon employ inmates in for-profit call centers. Oregon and many others also make garments and furniture -- industries that have largely moved offshore, other than in prisons. Inmates are paid between 12 cents and $5.69 an hour, according to Bureau of Prisons statistics, said The Guardian.
Long-term inmates, meanwhile, are quite happy doing the job and "not wearing a ball and chain."
Perry Johnson managed to open its call centre in the Oregon prison for half the price of relocating to India, and achieved many of the same benefits, according to Mike Reagan, director of Inside Oregon Enterprises at Snake River, said The Guardian.
At Snake River, to qualify for the call centre job, inmates must have three to five years remaining on their sentence. Outside, the typical turnover is nine months. Randomly screened Also, inmates make good telemarketers, The Guardian report said, quoting prison officials.
The prisoners work 40-hour weeks in rows of nondescript cubicles.
The newspaper said that the convicts pitch Perry Johnson's quality control consulting service to executives at American businesses, sometimes even company presidents. Prison officials randomly monitor inmates' phone conversations, and all calls are digitally recorded to discourage personal calls or illegal activity, said The Guardian.