Civil rights and criminal justice groups held a virtual rally on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 17, to launch their grassroots campaign to raise wages and improve working conditions in New York State prisons. An issue they said furthers modern day “slavery” for incarcerated individuals under the constitution’s 13th Amendment.
The advocacy group is in huge support of State Senator Zellnor Myrie’s Abolish Penal Servitude Act that would end forced labor in prisons. They are also demanding that wages for detainees be raised to at least $3 an hour under the Prison Minimum Wage Act, which Myrie also sponsored.
“Incarcerated people are human beings, who contribute tens of millions of dollars to New York State’s economy,” said Myrie in a statement. “In the depths of the pandemic, incarcerated New Yorkers produced millions of gallons of hand sanitizer for the public, while our prisons became COVID hotspots. It is time to treat these workers with dignity by allowing them to share in the benefits they provide to this state.”
Similarly, Assemblymember Harvey Epstein sponsored bills A3142 and A3481A, both of which deal with labor protections for prisoners.
The advocacy campaign is called #FixThe13thNY, referring to a sort of ‘loophole’ in the 13th Amendment where slavery was abolished in its language, except “as a punishment for crime” or essentially the prison system in New York state.
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