Chandra Bozelko calls on California to make incarcerated firefighters “what they are: employees”

Chandra Bozeklko (Emerging Leaders™ 2016) writes, “Kim Kardashian posted a plea to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Instagram last week saying wages for inmates fighting the Los Angeles County wildfires should be raised. Right now, they’re paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, depending on their skill level, with an additional $1 per hour during emergencies. Other celebrities called for a ‘parade’ in honor of these incarcerated heroes — and for more leniency on their prison sentences.

These firefighters deserve something even better than raised wages or celebrations. They should be designated what they are: employees.

“The Conservation Camp program, as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calls it, is an exemplar of prison labor. It allows participants to live outside the prison and earn time off their sentences. After they’ve completed their terms, they are immediately eligible to have their records expunged which is necessary to get around California’s licensing requirements to work as a firefighter. Newsom signed a bill in 2020 to assure this.

“The department currently runs 35 conservation camps in 25 counties. In 2021, approximately 3,700 prisoners worked in the conservation camps; around 2,600 were trained. In May of last year, 1,867 people were training. While different numbers have been bandied about, more than 900 inmate firefighters are currently helping to put out fires in Los Angeles. The county could have used more.

“These firefighters deserve something even better than raised wages or celebrations. They should be designated what they are: employees. …

“Other considerations belong in the discussion of helping inmate firefighters, including that they are four times more likely to incur injuries from debris or other objects and eight times more likely to be hurt after inhaling smoke and particulates compared with professional firefighters. Yet unlike their professional counterparts, they don’t receive protections or benefits. …

“Of course, declaring that working inmates are employees would likely trigger the application of minimum wage statutes, putting the program at the same risk as in 2022, during the debates around the bill about involuntary servitude. But defining someone as an employee for a limited purpose is familiar territory, and California could write the statute so that it doesn’t risk the program. Some states classify volunteer firefighters as employees to give them certain legal protections without having to pay them wages. In California and New York, for example, these volunteers are employees so they can file workers’ compensation claims.”

Read the full op-ed at LATimes.com.