In The News

• AUDIO: Listen to Congressman Huizenga's full interview with Matt Patrick of KTRH HERE
  

Manufacturers fear layoffs with no-bid process
KTRH
Nik Rajkovic
September 19, 2012

Texas prisoners make everything from state flags to office chairs, ornamental fencing, even polo shirts.  Now the national prison industry is going after military uniforms. 

Joel Ortega manages Excel Manufacturing in El Paso; he's worried he'll have to lay off workers if they lose their current contract. 

"We feel its very unfair that someone, especially prisoners, who get paid so little can take work away from individuals who have been trained and are working hard to provide uniforms to our armed forces," says Ortega. ... "I would guess the federal prison industry has a better lobbying group than we do," he says.  "They get 7% of all contracts, that's just at their will; they could get more if they wanted to." 

With more than 13,000 inmates, Federal Prison Industries operates in about 80 factories across the United States. The company is not allowed to sell its goods to the private sector -- and the law requires federal agencies to buy its products, even if they are not the cheapest. ... 

"They can come in and say it doesn't matter what our delivery schedule is, doesn't matter what our price is, doesn't matter what our quality is, you are going to be buying from us," Huizenga told KTRH News. 

FPI, also known as UNICOR, argues it only accounts for a small portion of products being made, but Huizenga and others say that's still too much with an unemployment rate hovering above 8%. 

"Long gone are those days where they would just be stamping out license plates," says Huizenga.  "They are taking real jobs away from law abiding, private sector citizens who are paying the price, and don't think we should have the government working against them in this fashion."

Read the entire piece on KTRH's Website HERE