## Facts

- Daniel Lee Vanskike was an Illinois state prisoner incarcerated at Stateville and Menard Correctional Centers.
- Illinois law authorized the Department of Corrections (DOC) to require inmates to work as part of a prison work program aimed at rehabilitation and offsetting incarceration-related costs.
- Vanskike alleged he was required to perform prison jobs including janitorial work, kitchen work, gallery work, and knit-shop piece-line work.
- He alleged the DOC paid him below the federal minimum wage and sought minimum-wage compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
- The district court treated the complaint as an FLSA action and dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) on the ground that prisoners are not FLSA “employees”; Vanskike appealed that dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether a state prisoner performing compulsory institutional work for the prison system is an “employee” entitled to the FLSA minimum wage.
2. Whether the DOC, in assigning and supervising such work within prison, is an FLSA “employer.”

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reviewed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de novo, accepting well-pleaded allegations as true and construing the pro se complaint liberally.
- The court affirmed dismissal, holding that prisoners performing compulsory institutional work for the DOC are not “employees” under the FLSA.
- The court concluded that, in this setting, the DOC is not an “employer” for purposes of the FLSA minimum-wage requirement.

## Legal Principles

- FLSA coverage turns on the existence of an employment relationship grounded in economic reality, not merely on the fact that a person performs work.
- The statutory definition of “employ” (“to suffer or permit to work”) is broad but does not automatically convert compelled prison labor into covered employment.
- For compulsory institutional prison work, the governing relationship is custody and penal authority rather than voluntary, market-based labor bargaining typical of FLSA employment.
- Work requirements tied to incarceration—including discipline, security, and rehabilitation—do not create an FLSA employer–employee relationship between the prisoner and the prison system.
- The permissibility of compelled labor as a consequence of criminal conviction reinforces that such work is part of confinement, not ordinary employment for minimum-wage purposes.

## Conclusion

The court held that an Illinois inmate required to perform institutional jobs for the prison system is not an FLSA “employee,” so the Department of Corrections has no federal minimum-wage obligation for that prison labor, and the complaint was properly dismissed for failure to state a claim.


Vanskike v. Peters, 974 F.2d 806 (7th Cir. 1992)