A clothing company in north central Pennsylvania will use prison labor to fulfill the military garment contract that may have saved Fechheimer Brothers' shirt factory in Jefferson.
Officials from Cincinnati, Ohio-based Fechheimer, as well as the union representing the 108 workers, touted the five-year contract as the last chance to keep the plant operating. However, the contract, to produce shirts for the U.S. Marine Corps, went to Woolrich Inc. earlier this month. So, the local plant will close permanently.
Woolrich, a 175-year-old company based in the town of the same name, plans to use federal inmates to sew the shirts. The company has been using the federal prison system to fulfill at least two other military contracts, one for Army combat trousers and another for heavy-duty jackets. Using federal prisoners can be useful to control costs while ensuring the goods are made domestically, which is a common requirement for military contracts. Federal Prison Industries, a government corporation, partners with companies to provide various jobs for inmates.
"We have no lock on this Federal Prison Industries," said Roswell Brayton, president and chief executive officer for Woolrich.
About 70 inmates from a federal correctional facility in Butner, N.C., will sew the short-sleeved, khaki Marine Corps dress shirts, according to Todd Baldau of FPI. They will be paid between 23 cents and $1.15 an hour. However, the actual per-hour costs are considerably higher since a prison shop has to incur expenses not seen in a traditional work place, such as extra security and job training.
"It's a sweat shop," said Cliff Clark, regional representative of UNITE, the labor union representing the garment plant workers in Jefferson. "If they want to do such a community service and help these prisoners out, why not pay them a prevailing wage so they can pay their fines off that much quicker?"
The contract is worth between slightly less than $1 million and $1.8 million a year. Woolrich will make between 118,000 to 230,000 shirts annually.
Woolrich will use traditional workers to cut the shirt patterns. In fact, the company's cutting plant in Jersey Shore, Pa., added employees to deal with the increased workload. Before Woolrich's relationship with Federal Prison Industries, the 10 people working at the cutting plant often were laid off. Now, 25 full-time employees work consistently, said Charles Aides, senior vice president of apparel manufacturing for Woolrich. 
A few of the now-unemployed workers at the Jefferson shirt factory expressed dismay when they learned that federal inmates would indirectly take their jobs.
Unite Local 622 president Lynn Bird of Sycamore said she was disappointed when it was announced Fechheimer lost the Marine Corps contract to Woolrich. "But I thought at least this is a Pennsylvania company," she said. "I didn't know they were using prisoners. That's just a shame."
Bird and most of her co-workers have been out of their jobs since June, but the employees hoped the Marine Corps contract would provide enough work to keep the factory operating for a few more years.
Thousands of American textile workers have lost their jobs to cheaper labor overseas, but many government contracts are insulated from that possibility, since many contracts require that the products be made in the United States.
Federal Prison Industries (FPI), which also is known as UNICOR, has been around since 1934, but the program has grown in size and visibility since the 1980s, said Baldau, spokesman for FPI.
The program does not compete for government contracts directly. Instead, it functions as a subcontractor for companies bidding on the jobs. FPI also buys raw materials, equipment and services from outside companies. Last year, those purchases totaled a half-billion dollars.