Start Paying the Inmates Fighting the California Fires
California is being ravaged by fires again. Fire season reminds us that California uses nearly-free prison labor to fight those fires. It could surely manage to hire firefighters or pay a fair wage to inmates doing an incredibly dangerous job. This is especially true when there are millions of new unemployed Californians. It is time for the Golden State to wean itself off of cheap inmate labor.
California “employs” approximately 15,000 inmates to fight fires. Nonviolent offenders sign up to fight fires for $2 per day plus $1 per hour spent fighting fires. They also receive some time off of their sentence. Paying people $5-$10 a day to fight fires in California shocks the conscience. Firefighting is incredibly dangerous, and the people who sign up for the program are working for the benefit of every Californian.
The state has gotten away with paying next to nothing for firefighters for decades. It decided that nearly free prison labor beats hiring employees or paying fair wages any day. It took a pandemic to force the state to hire firefighters as seasonal workers. To avoid mass infections in prisons, the state released nonviolent prisoners. This means it also cut the amount of available cheap labor. California hired 860 firefighters for a real wage to offset the shortage.
The California government is not even subtle about their desire for cheap labor. In 2014 California argued against reducing the population in their unconstitutionally overcrowded prisons because of labor costs. The state did not want to actually hire paid employees, and used that to justify unconstitutional overcrowding. They argued that enabling too many nonviolent inmates to leave at once would leave firefighting teams and prisons short-staffed. Luckily, the courts ordered California to stop violating the inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights just to cut staff costs.
It shocks the conscience that this perverse underpayment is not roundly criticized. For example, The New York Times ran a story claiming that there was a shortage of inmates to fight fires because of early releases from COVID-19. The story discussed the benefits of the program at length but barely addressed critical views. The story framed the problem as a labor shortage issue. However, it was not critical of the perverse policy of using cheap prison labor to fight fires. This enables California to say that they should continue underpaying inmates because of the utilitarian benefit for the state. Just like they did in 2014.
There is no justifiable reason for California to rely on cheap firefighter labor. The inmates deserve a real wage for dangerous work that benefits all Californians. Plus, since there is a shortage of firefighters, why not attempt to recruit any of the 2.5 million unemployed people in the state? Even better, why not hire former inmate firefighters who have trouble getting jobs as firefighters due to their record? The fires devastate the environment, threaten lives, and have burned an area the size of Rhode Island so far. Is that not enough to justify paying real wages to firefighters?
Working people at a near-zero wage, and trying to keep people incarcerated so that they will fight fires for nearly free is perverse.
It is also slavery with extra steps.
