In a First, California Moves Toward Paying Incarcerated Firefighters Minimum Wage

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The Santa Barbara Independent republishes stories from CalMatters.org on state and local issues impacting readers in Santa Barbara County.

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In a historic policy change, California is moving to pay incarcerated firefighters the federal minimum wage during active fires. 

The wage increase, funded through the new state budget, follows years of advocacy to improve pay and working conditions for incarcerated labor. That effort took on a new urgency after hundreds of incarcerated firefighters were deployed to battle deadly wildfires that hit Los Angeles in January. 

Incarcerated firefighters currently earn between $5.80 and $10.24 per day, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. During active emergencies, Cal Fire compensates them an additional $1 per hour. 

That appears to be changing. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed a new state budget with $10 million to pay incarcerated firefighters $7.25 an hour when they’re on a fire. It will take effect Jan. 1 as long as the Legislature passes a bill that would mandate the policy.

“It’s the right thing to do and it’s long overdue,” said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City who authored the bill that would raise incarcerated firefighter pay. “It feels really beautiful and life changing for folks who have sacrificed to save others during their time being held accountable for whatever harms they may have caused in their past.” 

Bryan initially set out to raise wages for incarcerated firefighters to $19 per hour, but settled on the federal minimum wage after budget negotiations. The bill, which received bipartisan support from nearly two dozen lawmakers, was opposed by the California State Sheriffs’ Association over concerns of its potential fiscal impact on counties. 

“To have a bipartisan moment where we’re dignifying incarcerated labor with a federal minimum wage – I think that is the best of who we are,” said Bryan. “My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, on this particular effort, are demonstrating what it really means to be Californian.”

Bryan introduced the bill after voters last year rejected a ballot measure that would have ended forced labor in prisons and jails. California’s incarcerated firefighters have long provided critical support to state, local and federal government agencies in responding to various emergencies, including wildfires and floods. 

Over 1,800 incarcerated firefighters live year-round in minimum-security conservation camps, also known as “fire camps,” located across 25 counties in California, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Those numbers have dwindled in recent years due to a declining prison population. 

The wage increase is an acknowledgment to the people fighting the fires, said Katie Dixon, policy and campaign coordinator for the organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners, which supported Bryan’s bill. 

“I feel like this is a statement of value – in saying: we value you, we honor you, we see you,” said Dixon. 

Dixon dreamed of becoming a firefighter after spending two years on a hand crew while she was incarcerated. But despite her experience fighting hundreds of fires, she found that the career path was not available to her when she was released from prison in 2012 due to her criminal record. 

“It felt like a dream deferred. A dream that’s been cut off due to systemic policies designed to keep people like me — Black people — out of certain professions,” said Dixon. “Deep down inside, I’m supposed to be a battalion chief.”

Both state and federal legislation have been introduced this year to try and shore up the pipeline for incarcerated people to land in firefighting careers once they’ve been released. 

U.S. Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Judy Chu, both from California, introduced a bill that would establish national protections for incarcerated firefighters, including a uniform framework to clear their records that would ease the barriers to employment. 

“As we are seeing departments contract, as we are seeing that it is harder to recruit and retain firefighters, why would you miss an opportunity like this to connect a pipeline that is trained right into municipalities that need more firefighters?” said Kamlager-Dove. “At the end of the day, it’s jobs and economic stability that help all of us.”