For a prior section 3622, applicable to offenses committed prior to
Section effective
Ex. Ord. No. 11755,
The development of the occupational and educational skills of prison inmates is essential to their rehabilitation and to their ability to make an effective return to free society. Meaningful employment serves to develop those skills. It is also true, however, that care must be exercised to avoid either the exploitation of convict labor or any unfair competition between convict labor and free labor in the production of goods and services.
Under sections 3621 and 3622 of title 18, United States Code, the Bureau of Prisons is empowered to authorize Federal prisoners to work at paid employment in the community during their terms of imprisonment under conditions that protect against both the exploitation of convict labor and unfair competition with free labor.
Several states and other jurisdictions have similar laws or regulations under which individuals confined for violations of the laws of those places may be authorized to work at paid employment in the community.
Executive Order No. 325A, which was originally issued by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, prohibits the employment, in the performance of Federal contracts, of any person who is serving a sentence of imprisonment at hard labor imposed by a court of a State, territory, or municipality.
I have now determined that Executive Order No. 325A should be replaced with a new Executive Order which would permit the employment of non-Federal prison inmates in the performance of Federal contracts under terms and conditions that are comparable to those now applicable to inmates of Federal prisons.
NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to the authority vested in me as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
(1)(A) The worker is paid or is in an approved work training program on a voluntary basis;
(B) Representatives of local union central bodies or similar labor union organizations have been consulted;
(C) Such paid employment will not result in the displacement of employed workers, or be applied in skills, crafts, or trades in which there is a surplus of available gainful labor in the locality, or impair existing contracts for services; and
(D) The rates of pay and other conditions of employment will not be less than those paid or provided for work of a similar nature in the locality in which the work is being performed; and
(2) The Attorney General has certified that the work-release laws or regulations of the jurisdiction involved are in conformity with the requirements of this order.
(b) After notice and opportunity for hearing, the Attorney General shall revoke any such certification under section 1(a)(2) if he finds that the work-release program of the jurisdiction involved is not being conducted in conformity with the requirements of this order or with its intent or purposes.
(c) The provisions of this order do not apply to purchases made under the micropurchase authority contained in section 32 of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act, as amended [now 41 U.S.C. 1902].