The company was founded in 1949 as Global Equipment Company, a materials handler.

Mr. Heckman points to survey data showing that 40 percent of sales workers and 23 percent of materials handlers are receiving training at least once a year.

People like Mr. Showers, 59, a materials handler for the York International Corporation, the air-conditioner and refrigeration company, began to visit the men in prison.

"WE wanted to promote one of our good employees, a materials handler who had been with us for five years, to a better job, as supervisor," said Stephen J. Rodgers, personnel director at the Rawlplug Company in New Rochelle.

JCB Materials Handling Ltd of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire for telescopic materials handlers.

But that is precisely the fear of workers like Mr. Thomas, a materials handler.

Some, like Scooter, are materials handlers that use mini-conveyors, forklift attachments or robot arms to handle goods.

Clifford C. Broady and his wife, Deborah, both work at the company's Martinsville, Va., textile plant, he as a materials handler in the knitting department, she as an automated screen printer.