Prisoners in the US are fighting the prison-industrial complex by refusing to work unpaid.

In principal, it is not wrong to make prisoners cook the food that they eat, or wash the clothes that they wear. That's no worse than life for most people. Putting prisoners to work on public service activities can be a form of restitution and rehabilitation (if it isn't twisted into an excuse for cruelty).

However, making prisoners work unpaid for the state's profit, or private profit, is harmful to everyone. It cuts wages for people outside prison, which is likely to force some of them into prison.

Combine this with the system that gouges prisoners for everything, even medical care (which they are entitled to), and it makes sense for prisoners to refuse to work at all without a decent wage.

US prisons abandoned the idea of rehabilitation in the 1980s as part of massive incarceration, but what could be more effective rehabilitation for prisoners than giving them a real job for real pay?