Summit is an E-Commerce company that operates in The Wolds prison, having previously been run in HMP Rye Hill - where I was one of their first employees about a decade ago.
Summit sharply divides opinion. As a private company, they make millions in profit, based on the work done by prisoners who are paid around £15 a week. You can see the moral objection...?
Yet I not only volunteered for the opportunity, I had to pass an interview and selection process. It was a position I had to fight for. At that time, I didn't know squat about the Internet.
The work environment was interesting, in that Summit provides a specialist service and the expectations upon our professionalism were correspondingly high. Being treated like a capable human being is a novelty in prison.
However...Summit wished to pretend that it wasn't operating within prison, whilst relying on that very fact for its existence. If we were absent from work for exercise, visits, medical appointments - the detritus of daily prison life - then they used to bitch about it.
The largest objection to Summit is the argument it offers for paying such low pay while raking in such gargantuan profits. Summit argues that the training it provides would be hideously expensive for us to gain in the outside world, and that the skills Summit endows would lead to good prospects upon release.
Well, yes - and no. Summit prefers to employ Lifers and long-termers. Assuming a normal course through the sentence, a man may leave Summit and not reach the outside world for 4 or more years. The relevance of the skills in such a fast moving field after that length of time away from the Internet is questionable.
Summit also declines to say just what percentage of its employees leave prison and find work in the field. That raises loud alarm bells for me.
And as a matter of equity, any company who can make millions in profits should at least pay minimum wage to its workers. Cut through the sophistry, and it comes down to fairness and decency. Summit stinks.
An interesting footnote, though. The prison service refuses to allow us Internet access on "security grounds". How then, does Summit manage to operate within prisons? Perhaps the income it generates may help answer that question? Or are we just uncovering yet another piece of stinking hypocrisy on the part of our keepers?
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This is absolutly disgraceful, where else can a company get an employee for £15 a week, while the taxpayer foots the bill for food and board? I know an inmate at the Wolds, who is very much exploited,and Hedley Aylott is doing very nicely thank you very much. The Wolds is a private run prison. I doubt they would get away with it at HMP. See the link Campaign against prison slavery for more info.
ReplyDeleteAn absolute disgrace is what it is. Prisoners are not kept in the lap of luxury by any means, but the meagre living they enjoy is still funded by the tax payer. What percentage of prisoners have actually left these so called 'training for work' jobs and gone on to find a job on the outside?
ReplyDeleteHow else would Hedley Aylott pay for his plane that uses his PRIVATE polo grounds as an airstrip (on which his other office is located for avoidance of tax purposes)! Doesn't stop there either, Summit Media also pay for his house which is located on the same polo grounds - ah, prison labour! Follow the family trail to find out how they were able to 'employ' prisoners for their business. Whilst Hedley Aylott at Summit Media may appear to be successful, it is truly at the blood and hard work of others - he couldn't possibly risk hurting his polo swing!
ReplyDeleteso ben why was it you got fired from summit media or are we not meant to talk about this?
ReplyDeleteScummit Media!! They are a disgrace and run by an Old Bitch (Marian) and her spoilt Son (Hedley) Wolds is then run by a drag queen (Charlotte)
ReplyDeleteFact!!
How come Charlotte the harlot is still there? she was caught giving sexual favors to inmates and bringing drugs in. I would have thought she would have been sacked for that, if not, just proves money talks.
ReplyDeleteyes bjust seen some privatley educated young toff getting embaressed about how much money summit media makes !
ReplyDeletebut then when you look at how corrupt the past 40yrs of goverment have been its hardly supprising , if i was in the pc office id converse with my other lags to find a way of "internet frauding " there accounts
Ben, you are clearly an idiot! and the rest of you who have commented! I have no need to validate my statement, wasted on such simpletons!
ReplyDelete@anon 10:46, I'm pretty certain that I have mentioned the fact that I was fired from Summit for breaching their security protocols and ogling naked ladies. No surprise there to anyone who knows me...
ReplyDelete