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Last week Robert Dudley, the incoming CEO of BP, said it is “not too soon” to begin scaling back clean-up efforts along the Gulf Coast. It’s been just over two weeks since a temporary cap has stopped the flow of oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Oil gushed into the Gulf for close to 100 days, from late April to mid-July. This week a congressional committee will investigate whether the Coast Guard allowed BP to use higher amounts of chemical dispersants than is recommended by federal guidelines. BP used thousands of gallons of chemical dispersants a day in its clean-up efforts, despite evidence that the chemicals were harmful to fish and wildlife. The long-term environmental effects are unknown. BP’s clean-up strategies have been closely guarded by the company, including their hiring practices. Writing for The Nation magazine, my guest Abe Louise Young recently reported that the use of prison labor on clean-up crews is an open-secret in Louisiana. Young reports that inmates work 12 hour days in a heat so intense their shifts are 20 minutes on, 40 minutes off to recover. Many work an average of 72 hours a week, performing back breaking labor, such as shoveling oil that has washed up on beaches into garbage bags. Inmates in work-release programs are eligible to be hired at market-rate wages, but they cannot decline to take a job without being penalized. The workers are under a gag-order and cannot talk to reporters. Louisiana prison officials and representatives of the Department of Corrections declined Young’s requests to be interviewed. Private Companies like BP, who hire inmates from work-release programs receive tax-credits of $2,400 for each employee. Young reports that beach clean-up jobs pay the lowest wages of any in the recovery effort, and they are among the most physically taxing and dangerous in terms of long-term health effects.

GUEST: Abe Louise Young: A poet and journalist from New Orleans, Louisiana, now living in Austin, Texas.

More of her work can be found at www.abelouiseyoung.com.

Read Abe Louise Young’s article in the Nation Magazine at http://www.thenation.com/article/37828/bp-hires-prison-labor-clean-spill-while-coastal-residents-struggle