California courts have long upheld below-minimum wage pay for prison inmates working a wide range of jobs. A 2024 ballot measure that would ban forced labor could alter those decisions.
Local and national news, NPR, things to do, food recommendations and guides to Los Angeles, Orange County and the Inland EmpireCalifornia prison inmates earn less than 74 cents an hour for work they perform while incarcerated. An anti-slavery ballot measure could open the door to higher pay. Here, an inmate works on an American flag while working in the Prison Industry Authority fabrics program at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on April 5, 2012.
This time, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a separate law that will take effect if voters pass the ballot measure and would empower prisons to create. The law does not detail a new pay scale. Only time will tell if local governments and the prison system set wages that preserve the current network of jobs for inmates.Money — for inmate workers or in increased costs to taxpayers — is not the primary consideration for the advocates who want to ban forced labor in prisons.
Carillo said inmates in certain circumstances could challenge their pay under a voluntary work program, potentially by claiming they were coerced to earn benefits. Another scenario could be that they claim the compensation they receive is not sufficient to make the work actually voluntary.Such concerns have previously loomed over anti-slavery discussions in the Legislature. Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda, opposed the previous proposal to prohibit forced labor.
“We’re not saying that it’s right what the wages are, whatsoever, but that’s a whole different issue,” said, a chief strategy consultant and lobbyist for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, who has pushed for higher wages for inmates in the past. “This was never about wages, it was about just literally giving somebody the agency to tailor their own rehabilitative programming journey.”
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