And ultimately, the company can be fired. Good luck trying to fire a substandard prison union employee (let alone the department), unless you can pin an illegal act on him or her.

It costs roughly $50K a year to house a CA prisoner. The national average is about $32K. Private prisons (common in other states but now effectively banned in CA) cost about $20K a prisoner.

No effort is being made by CA politicians to control these costs. In fact, the governor just signed off on a new sweet labor contract for our powerful state prison guards labor union.

The median wage for guards nationwide is $42,610.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm

CA prison guards make over $70,000 base pay after 3 years on the job, and that’s before counting all the extra categories that increase pay, or overtime.
http://www.caltax.org/caltaxletter/2008/101708_fraud1.htm

And there are the absurd, underfunded CA state pensions. A 30 year guard can retire in his early 50’s with a bigger take-home pension paycheck than his highest net pay while working.

Gov. Brown may TRY to use this Supreme Court ruling to raise taxes, but these facts about runaway state spending on prisoners will help kill this tax increase.

The guards’ union buys CA politicians like most of us buy groceries at the supermarket. And most of their union-labeled political allies are cheap acquisitions.

When one discovers private prison firms donating to a politician, that’s clearly seen as a red flag — as it should be. But tally up the IE campaigns from the CCPOA (and other unions) and realize what they are buying — their prosperity (and increased demand) at our expense.

We need to disband the public employee labor unions. NOT private sector labor unions.

In the wake of news that private prison corporations are spending millions of dollars lobbying for tougher immigration laws comes a study that says privatizing prisons does not save taxpayers any money and may increase costs in some cases.

With five private prisons currently operating in Colorado, the state seems to be benefiting from the arrangement.

read the rest of the story here

http://coloradoindependent.com/88610/study-casts-doubt-on-whether-private-prisons-save-states-money

You forgot to give Governor’s Wilson and Schwarzenegger honorable mention in your article.

Wilson, the father of the unallocated budget cut, wage freezes and massive hiring freeze, which resulted in a significant reduction in the number of medical staff at each prison. Wonder why the medical receiver ordered across-the-board raises to CDCR’s medical staff? Do some research.

Then there’s Arnold. The man who allowed the Queen of the Private Prisons, Donna Arduin, draft his first budget. So what’d they do? Project a 30k inmate decrease in population, resulting in the shutdown of all Planning and Construction within CDC. 4 years later, with the passing of AB 900, Arnold had $8 Billion in bond authority to build. So what’d he do? A minimal amount of research will show he did nothing. Nada. Zip. The first Governor to not add a single bed to the prison system since the early 1940’s.

“The union has been unceasingly critical of private prisons, suggesting that CCA, Cornell Corrections and GEO Group provide inferior security at their facilities, while yielding little if any real savings to states like California.” Just last week, the State of Arizona Department of Corrections issued report which can be added to the volumes of reports that show privatizing prisons saves little to no money, and puts the inmates, employees and general public at greater risk. Just look at the most recent escape in Arizona. At least 2 murders, countless other crimes, the tax payers footing the bill because MTC wanted to save a little money on security.