NEW YORK, NY – On Thursday, 50 criminal justice and workers’ rights organizations came together to send New York Governor Andrew Cuomo a letter demanding that he use his executive powers during the current State of Emergency, declared on March 7 in response to the Coronovirus outbreak, to fairly compensate the State’s incarcerated workers.
The letter is a response to Governor Cuomo’s March 9th announcement that New York’s incarcerated workers are being tasked with mass producing hand sanitizer to address the State’s shortage of the critical personal hygiene product during the Coronovirus outbreak. These workers are paid as little as $0.26 per hour and barred from possessing hand sanitizer because its alcohol content makes it contraband.
The letter states, “Last year, you voiced support for increasing the wages paid to incarcerated New Yorkers. We demand that you act on your sentiment and address the reality of modern-day slavery in NYS prisons by paying incarcerated workers minimum wage. We urge you to start by using your funding power under the declared State of Emergency to pay incarcerated workers charged with lifesaving work during this public health crisis fair wages. We also demand that you continue to pay incarcerated workers through potential work interruptions that might result from the Coronavirus pandemic.”
The full text of the letter and list of signatories can be found below.
Bianca Tylek, Executive Director at Worth Rises, stated, “Across the country, time and time again incarcerated workers are expected to spring into action to serve others in times of crisis. Despite our dependency on their labor, incarcerated workers go grossly undercompensated. Governor Cuomo’s plan to have incarcerated New Yorkers mass producing hand sanitizer is just the most recent example. But this is familiar territory for the Governor, who just last year sought to use incarcerated workers in a revenue generating scheme involving license plates. The ease and pride with which Governor Cuomo exploits incarcerated New Yorkers is disturbing. Slavery has no place in New York.”
Carmela Huang, Supervising Attorney of the Employment Law Unit at Legal Aid Society, said, “All people who work should be paid a wage that recognizes the value of their labor and their inherent human dignity, including incarcerated workers. These are anxious times, for sure. But we should not let our fears erode our fundamental values. Especially now, when incarcerated people are doing work that is protecting us all, the Governor should do the right thing and pay incarcerated workers the minimum wage. To fail to act would be nothing less than to condone the continued existence of slavery.”
“This is a racial justice issue. You can’t use slave labor and not acknowledge that those people being made to work without a minimum wage are disproportionately Black in New York and around the country,” said Scott Roberts, Senior Director of Criminal Justice Campaigns at Color of Change. "Labor is labor, no matter what era or what system it’s performed under. In this time of crisis especially, we should be compensating incarcerated workers for the important work they are doing to keep our communities safe."
Megan French-Marcelin, WORKINGfuture Campaign Coordinator at JustLeadershipUSA, said, “The cavalier introduction of NYS Clean is demonstrative of the nonchalance with which our Governor abuses the labor of incarcerated New Yorkers to reduce state budget lines. Exploiting the labor of incarcerated workers under the duplicitous guise of “public health” is as unethical as it is unjust. No worker, incarcerated or not, should go without meaningful wages. Not in a time of crisis. Not ever."
"Prison labor is rooted in our nation’s history of slavery. It is a disgrace that incarcerated people are paid pennies an hour, while New York State profits off of their labor. Incarcerated people are people. Work is work. And Governor Cuomo must ensure that worker protections - including minimum wage laws - apply to all workers, including incarcerated workers, in the midst of this global pandemic," said Katie Schaffer, Director of Advocacy and Organizing at the Center for Community Alternatives.
“As we work to transform New York State’s prisons from unproductive human holding tanks to business and government support centers and manufacturing facilities it is the State’s moral obligation to pay hard working incarcerated workers the same minimum wage the state mandates be paid to every other hard working New York State resident,” said Bill Bastuk, Chair of It Could Happen To You.
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[LETTER SENT ON MARCH 19, 2020]
Hon. Andrew Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor Andrew Cuomo,
On March 9, 2020, you announced that New York State would begin to mass-produce its own line of hand sanitizer products, promising the production of 100,000 gallons per week to fight the Coronavirus outbreak. While you extolled NYS Clean as an instrument of the State to promote public health at no cost to New Yorkers, you omitted the cost to public health and dignity for the workers charged with its mass production: the incarcerated New Yorkers at Great Meadow Correctional Facility.
Last year, you voiced support for increasing the wages paid to incarcerated New Yorkers. We demand that you act on your sentiment and address the reality of modern-day slavery in NYS prisons by paying incarcerated workers minimum wage. We urge you to start by using your funding power under the declared State of Emergency to pay incarcerated workers charged with lifesaving work during this public health crisis fair wages. We also demand that you continue to pay incarcerated workers through potential work interruptions that might result from the Coronavirus pandemic.
We are alarmed that the labor of our fellow New Yorkers at Great Meadow and incarcerated workers across our state who produce essential goods and provide critical services for the State for pennies an hour are being exploited without adequate compensation and often under the threat of punishment – including solitary confinement.
The production of NYS Clean is just the latest example of New York’s abuse of incarcerated labor. The State’s legislatively-mandated reliance on Corcraft ensures that the products manufactured and services rendered by incarcerated workers permeate every New Yorker’s life. Last summer, you announced a revenue raising initiative that required millions of New Yorkers to order new license plates, failing again to acknowledge the workers at Auburn Correctional Facility that would be manufacturing them for pennies per hour. In fact, you often turn to incarcerated workers to aid the State’s critical infrastructure. Incarcerated workers also manufacture the furniture in our public schools and universities, the garbage cans on our street corners, and the eyeglasses worn by Medicaid recipients.
Yet, the wages incarcerated workers are paid – as low as just $0.10 per hour – remain unchanged since 1993, a rate set by your father, Governor Mario Cuomo. Meanwhile, the State earns revenues upwards of $65 million a year through Corcraft, and the labor of incarcerated workers is used to artificially minimize Corrections’ operations costs. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that the State continues to prioritize profit over people.
We write today as a broad coalition of criminal justice and workers’ rights advocates and labor organizations committed to the belief that the labor of incarcerated people is no less valuable than yours or mine. Yet, while minimum wage spans between $11.80 and $15.00 across our state for people on the outside, incarcerated workers make what amounts to slave wages. That’s because, unsurprisingly, New York’s current system of penal labor has its genesis in the state’s Reconstruction-era Black Codes. The State profits by recreating punishment systems that disproportionately impact Black and Latinx New Yorkers.
Only by meaningfully increasing wages for incarcerated people and ending forced labor can we begin to respect the humanity and dignity inherent in each person. Incarcerated New Yorkers are our brothers, our sisters, our grandmothers, our cousins, and our neighbors; accordingly, we believe that each and every person inside must be paid fairly when they choose to work, and must not be forced to work at the risk of solitary confinement and other coercive measures. In this time of crisis especially, we must ensure that incarcerated people receive fair wages that can provide access to communication and critical commissary items, while alleviating pressure from families and communities who now face joblessness, houselessness, and hunger due to the measures taken by the State to prevent Coronavirus spread.
The undersigned organization implore you to use your powers during this State of Emergency to bring dignity to incarcerated workers, who you often tap to protect and serve our residents at the most critical times, by paying them real wages and ending forced labor. We also support the introduction and enactment of legislation in 2020 to give all workers the freedom to choose to work, to grant them the right to be paid a meaningful wage, and to deprioritize Corcraft as a preferred status vendor for state and local agencies.
We encourage you to stand with us, and with New York’s incarcerated workers who continue to labor on behalf of the State, in solidarity on behalf of the health and wellbeing of their families.
Signed,
Worth Rises
The Legal Aid Society
Color of Change
Adhikaar
Alliance of Families for Justice
Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (UAW Local 2325)
The Bronx Defenders
Brooklyn Community Bail Fund
Brooklyn Defender Services
Center for Community Alternatives
Center for Popular Democracy
Citizen Action of New York
College & Community Fellowship
Communications Workers of America (District 1)
Community Service Society of New York
Correctional Association of New York
CUNY Law Formerly Incarcerated Law Student Advocacy Association
CUNY National Lawyers Guild
Deskovic Foundation
Fines and Fees Justice Center
Flushing Workers Center
Fordham Law Workers' Rights Advocates
Fordham National Lawyers Guild
It Could Happen To You
Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier
JustLeadershipUSA
Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Legal Action Center
National Economic & Social Rights Initiative
National Employment Law Project
Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem
New York Civil Liberties Union
New York Communities for Change
New York County Defender Services
New York Legal Services Coalition
NYCOSH
One Fair Wage
Parole Preparation Project
Prisoners' Families Anonymous
Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP Campaign)
Queens Defenders
Truth Pharm
Unchained
Urban Justice Center
WESPAC Foundation
Worker's Justice Project
WNYCOSH Worker Center
VOCAL-NY
Youth Represent
Cc:
Hon. Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Majority Leader, New York State Senate
188 State Street LOB - Room 907
Albany, NY 12247
Hon. Carl Heastie
Speaker, New York State Assembly
New York State Capitol Room 349
Albany, NY 12247
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Worth Rises is a national criminal justice advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and eliminating the exploitation of those it touches.