Finance and Commerce -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 10/29/2002
Last Visited: 10/29/2002
Brian Crawford, ABC's legislative affairs director, said he has no specific numbers that illustrate how prison labor affects the construction industry.
Crawfors said, however, ABC is interested in the issue for philosophical reasons.
"The construction industry is probably one of the smaller things that FPI (Federal Prison Industries) is involved in," Crawford said."But ABC was founded on the principles of full and open competition and free enterprise.Obviously, FPI does not provide either of those things."
Crawford says ABC doesn't want to eliminate the prison program - it just wants to level the playing field.
"We want them to be able to compete like anyone else," he said."But they're growing at such an exponential rate that they're taking away business opportunities from good faith actors who are in the community."