"Janet Wilkerson had a problem. As vice president of human resources for Peterson Farms Inc., she was having trouble filling the overnight shift at her chicken processing plants. The hours were long. The pay was low. And there never seemed to be enough workers."
“It was a slave camp,” says one man sent to a chicken-processing plant run by Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery, where unpaid worke
"It was a slave camp."
“We felt like nobody had ever listened to us,” said one of the plaintiffs, Lucas Miller-Allen, when reached by phone today. “When all of our drug courts send us there, it’s like you don’t exist. It feels like you’re forgotten, like you’re thrown away. Like slavery. You’re dreading waking up each day, working for free, for nothing.”
But Janet Wilkerson was having trouble filling work shifts at her chicken processing planet, and she doesn't now.
Judges in Oklahoma are still sending her men to work for free. The "rehab program" keeps their wages and workers-comp for injuries on the job.
Men in the program work for free, under constant threat of being sent to prison, on products for big-name brands, including Popeyes, KFC and
The above stories are from 2017.
OPINION AND ORDER by Judge Terence Kern ; dismissing/terminating case ; granting (Document 131) Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma / Copeland eta v. C.A.A.I.R et al
This is from 2022:
CAAIR, as it is commonly known, began more than a decade ago sending residents to work at Simmons Foods Inc., a processing giant that Walker touts as a principal partner and supplier to his distributorship, Renaissance Man Food Services. State judges assigned convicted offenders to CAAIR, giving them a choice between the residential program and its requirements or serving time in conventional jails or prisons. Simmons would then contract with CAAIR for labor at its plants; CAAIR program participants were not paid.
Herschel Walker, who was Donald Trump's preferred Republican candidate for the 2022 US Senate election in Georgia, appears to be one of those "Christian businessmen" who profits from the free labor provided by CAAIR.