Bloomberg 2020 Campaign Vendor Uses Prison Labor for Presidential Campaign Calls
Brian Snyder/Reuters
We ran the numbers: There are 251 news articles covering this topic. 42% (106) are left leaning, 37% (93) center, 21% (52) right leaning.
On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate and former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg confirmed that one of his vendors hired a subcontractor that used prison workers to make phone calls for his 2020 campaign. The campaign stated that it was unaware that inmate workers were making phone calls on its behalf until a reporter called, and then immediately cut ties to the vendor supporting prison labor.
A left-leaning article by The New York Times reports that in a statement, Bloomberg said that his campaign does “...not support this practice and we are making sure our vendors more properly vet their subcontractors moving forward." The articles notes that although Bloomberg has spent more on campaign ads in the last few weeks than his main Democratic rivals, he has failed to crack into the top tier of candidates according to public opinion polls.
A centrist article by NPR reports that the Bloomberg campaign contracted a New Jersey-based call center company called ProCom, which runs call centers in New Jersey and Oklahoma. The article states that sources told The Intercept, who originally broke the story, that some of the calls were made by people incarcerated at a minimum-security women’s prison in Oklahoma called the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center.
A right-leaning article by New York Post highlights that Michael Bloomberg has been slammed on social media for using prison labor to make campaign calls. The article cites that Rival Democratic candidate Julian Castro and backers of Senator Bernie Sanders mocked Bloomberg through Twitter. While Castro tweeted that his “criminal justice plan calls for closing private prisons and paying fair wages to incarcerated individuals,” NYC4Bernie2020 tweeted, “If anyone is surprised that Bloomberg exploited prison labor to make phone calls for his campaign, check out this video of him defending stop and frisk by saying that actually…too many white people were being stopped!” The article makes no note about the Bloomberg campaign ending its relationship with their vendor that used prison labor.
From the left
Michael Bloomberg says his White House campaign unknowingly used prison labor
New York Times