From prison to a plastics factory

Salisbury, N.C. — Plastic additive maker Carolina Color Corp. has an unusual way of finding workers: It recruits mostly from the local prison.

Finding and keeping a solid workforce is a vexing problem for all manufacturers, but the company leans heavily on hiring convicted felons — 21 of the 25 employees on the production floor at its Salisbury factory are former or current inmates.

While employing prisoners might scare off some, Chairman and CEO Matt Barr said the company started hiring from the penitentiary in 1990 because it was having trouble finding and retaining factory workers. Altruism, seeing people from prison get a new start, has certainly become part of the company's motivation. But the effort has clear value to the bottom line, he said.

"It's been a great tool for us to develop a consistent workforce, train them according to our needs and ultimately as important or more important, give these gentlemen an opportunity to get some footing so that when they come out of the prison system they have an opportunity to turn their lives around," Barr said.

The company, which makes ​ colorants for plastics, works closely with the minimum-security unit of a prison in Salisbury, the Piedmont Correctional Institution, which runs a formal work-release program.

The prison will typically screen and send four inmates for each opening. All the prisoners have earned places in the lowest level of security even within the minimum-security unit, enough to be trusted to leave daily.

The program has strict rules for inmates, like random drug testing, no cell phones and no visitors at work while they remain in prison.

As well, Carolina Color won't take inmates convicted of certain crimes, like sex offenses, and does its own interviewing and screening, Barr said.

​

The program begins while the inmates are still in prison. Typically they work two to three years while still incarcerated. Many stay after they're released.

Mike Linnane started in work-release at Carolina Color 24 years ago, while serving time in Piedmont for armed robbery. He stayed after he got out of prison and worked his way up into management. Today he's the production manager, supervising 25 factory-floor employees and making hiring decisions.

"When I was a kid, I started doing drugs, and I actually robbed a Burger King in Greensboro with another guy," he said. "We caught a 14-year armed robbery prison sentence. They made examples out of us."

That experience gives Linnane some insight in hiring prisoners. But Barr believes North Carolina's prison system does a good job screening on its own.

Linnane looks for inmates who have done well with previous opportunities and not squandered them. He and Barr both acknowledge that some inmates don't work out. They've had prisoners pulled from the program for failing drug tests or getting caught with cell phones in the factory.

But overall, Linnane believes the program benefits the company. He said the Salisbury factory has an easier time keeping employees than the company's other manufacturing plant, just north of Columbus, Ohio.

"I'm in constant contact with my counterpart at the other plant in Ohio," Linnane said. "I see how many guys they go through. Having work-release makes my job so much easier."

Barr said the company is trying to develop a work-release program for the Ohio factory, but it's not located near a state prison.

"There are some [efforts] that we're helping to design because we have the experience but there isn't a program up there identical to what we're doing down here," Barr said. "So, it's taken a bit of work."

For now, the Ohio plant has several employees who came to the company though the probation system of local county jails.

In an early May visit to Carolina Color, both managers and former inmates said there's another reason the ex-prisoners make for a more stable workforce: It's tough for those with felony convictions to find other jobs.

"Being a convicted felon is like having a scarlet letter with a big 'F' on you," Linnane said. "It is tough to get a job with a felony. Most companies will not hire you.

"They won't even look into what you did, or when you did it, or how long it's been," he said. "It's just automatically you got a felony."

Barr said Carolina Color does not receive any tax breaks for hiring former inmates. The company does save money while the workers are in the prison system because they don't use Carolina Color's health insurance or retirement benefits, he said. But they get those as soon as they leave prison and join the company.

Only a small percentage of its current factory workforce is in prison right now. Carolina Color has four current inmates among the 21 felons on its payroll.

Barr also noted that the company is only legally required to pay minimum wage to people in the work-release program, but chooses to pay market wages.

"One of the advantages that the [prison work] camp will tell employers is that you can hire these guys at minimum wage," Linnane said. "Well, we don't hire these guys at minimum wage. We hire them at the same pay scale that we hire somebody off the street. We treat them as equals."

Barr believes the people who come to the company on work-release have extra motivation.

"You've got a certain work ethic associated with it because these gentlemen understand that if not for these types of opportunities, they might not be able to turn their lives around," he said. "Many of them are very talented in their own right."

Barr, who joined the company in 1998, inherited the work-release program. He came to Carolina Color from a Fortune 50 company and said initially the work-release program was "very foreign to me."

"But when I actually saw the participants and understood the potential, not just from a business standpoint but from a human standpoint, I was intrigued by it and obviously support it," he said.

He said the company wants to foster a culture that "believes in the redemptive qualities of these types of programs," as long as it does not compromise the health or safety of other employees.

He sees work-release as a key part of that and refers to his production manager.

"Look at Mike Linnane, for instance," Barr said. "He made one silly mistake many years ago. He could have ended up in a different position now, but needless to say, through this program he's turned his life around."

Click here to read more about employees hired through Carolina Color's program.

Click here to read an editorial on Carolina Color's program.