Alabama is sued by inmates who claim state made a staggering $450M by ‘convict leasing’ – and forcing them to work in fast food joints like McDonald’s and Burger King ‘for next to nothing’ in move ‘similar to cotton-picking’

A group of current and former inmates are suing the state of Alabama, claiming they made $450 million by forcing them to work at fast food chains for “almost nothing.”

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Middle District Court, alleges the prisoners were forced into a “modern form of slavery” by the state.

It says they were “trapped in a system of 'condemned leasing,' in which incarcerated people are forced to work, often for little or no money,” while the state kept the profits from their labor.

The plaintiffs said they are regularly forced to work at McDonald's, KFC, Wendy's and Burger King franchises, Anheuser-Busch distributors and meat processors.

According to the complaint, prisoners “live in constant danger of being murdered, stabbed, or raped… and if they refuse to work, the state punishes them even more severely.”

The lawsuit accuses state agencies — including the Alabama Department of Corrections — and more than two dozen state officials, including Governor Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall, of violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Alabama earns $450 million a year from forced labor, according to the complaint, which states that since 2018, 575 private employers and more than 100 public employers have “rented” workers from Alabama prisons.

It says the inmates are working against their will in “unsafe working conditions” and the ADOC takes 40 percent of the gross income, claiming this is “to help defray the costs of his/her incarceration.”

According to the complaint, 1,374 inmates were enrolled in the work program as of September 2023.

One of the people involved in the complaint, Lakiera Walker, was imprisoned from 2007 to 2023.

She said she was forced to do long hours of uncompensated work “under threat of discipline.”

Her duties included housekeeping, stripping floors, providing care to the mentally handicapped or other sick people in prison, unloading chemical trucks, working in freezers and at Burger King.

She said she was paid only $2 a day and was subjected to sexual harassment by a supervisory official.

When she was so sick she couldn't work, she said a supervisor told her to “get up and go make us our 40 percent.”

She told Law&Crime: 'Those women need help. They really need a voice. I knew I had to do something. I want justice for this forced labor.”

Lakiera Walker was imprisoned from 2007 to 2023 and said she was forced to work long hours for just $2 a day due to 'threats of discipline'

Alimireo English, a plaintiff against the Alabama Department of Corrections, has been incarcerated for 13 years. He regularly works 15-hour shifts, 7 days a week

The complaint alleges that if prisoners do not follow the rules, they risk being put “behind the wall” in one of the “higher security ultra-violent facilities.”

Plaintiffs argued that Alabama's practices are illegal under both the Alabama Constitution and the U.S. Constitution and asked the court to award compensatory and punitive damages.

One of the plaintiffs, Robert Earl Council, is an incarcerated activist who co-founded the Free Alabama Movement, a group that helped organize a nationwide strike among inmates in 2016.

According to the complaint, he was “subjected to severe and abusive treatment in retaliation for advocating that inmates refuse to submit to forced labor.”

He told Law&Crime: “Alabama seems addicted to cheap labor.”

The full list of plaintiffs is: Robert Earl Council, Lee Edward Moore Jr., Lakiera Walker, Jerame Apprentice Cole, Frederick Denard McDole, Michael Campbell, Arthur Charles Ptomey Jr., Lanair Pritchett, Alimireo English and Toni Cartwright.

Arthur Charles Promey Jr. has been in prison for 16 years. He was denied parole in 2022, with ADOC reportedly telling his family that this was because “he was fired from KFC in 2019.”

This is despite the fact that his KFC manager 'wrote a letter to the Parole Board specifically recommending him for parole in light of his strong job performance'.

DailyMail.com contacted the State of Alabama for comment.