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Tag: prison labor

  • 2025 Year in Review: 10 ways the City Beautiful stood up this year

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    A No Kings protest in Orlando, 2025 Credit: Matt Keller Lehman

    Amid a year filled with the chaos filtering down from the White House and our state government, Orlando once again proved that it’s possible to stand up, show up and send a message. Locals this year protested against fascism, organized to provide transparency for family members of those detained by ICE, and donated to food banks and other organizations this year to help those in need during the 43-day federal government shutdown.

    This is the energy we love to see in our friends and neighbors. Here’s to a lot more of it in 2026.

    Protesting the Trump administration under the slogan of ‘No Kings’
    Millions of Americans nationwide, including thousands in Central Florida, rallied against the Trump administration this year at sporadic “No Kings” protests organized by local activists fed up with the administration’s policies and funding cuts. Our reporter and photojournalist contributors documented Orlandoans who showed up across racial and generational lines, protesting proposed cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP, as well as the Trump administration’s immigration policy, billionaire Elon Musk’s ketamine-inspired “Department of Government Efficiency” and the generally hateful rhetoric coming from the White House. Several rallies were organized over the year at Orlando City Hall, but don’t worry, Kissimmee, we saw you, too.

    Protesting Trump’s immigrant crackdown in Waterford Lakes
    Nearly 200 Orlando residents came together near the Waterford Lakes Town Center over the first weekend of February to raise their voices loud and clear against policy decisions by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk — particularly against immigration crackdowns and mass deportations. Protesters held signs with messages such as “U.S. Means All of Us,” “Hate never made America great,” and “I DRINK MY HORCHATA WARM BC FUCK ICE.”

    Rallying against the state’s erasure of Pulse’s rainbow-colored sidewalk
    Despite funding a paint job for it last year, the state Department of Transportation decided this year that the rainbow-colored crosswalk outside the former Pulse nightclub was too woke and painted over it in the dead of night. And Orlando wasn’t having it. After all, the rainbow colors were installed to honor the 49 people killed during a mass shooting at Pulse in 2016, and served as sort of a makeshift memorial while the OnePulse Foundation stumbled around for years not building one. Local officials said it served as a roadway safety strategy, too. Many community members here saw the state’s paint job as a targeted insult to the LGBTQ community — not the first we’ve seen, and it’s unlikely to be the last.

    Donating to food banks to help local families in need
    Protest actions aren’t the only way that Orlandoans stood up this year. Orlando also showed up by donating to food banks like Second Harvest and to the airport as thousands of federal workers in Central Florida were either furloughed during the government shutdown or forced to work without pay. 

    Standing up for immigrants detained in the county jail
    Dozens of civil rights, legal and labor groups organized a coalition this year to call on Orange County leaders to ensure greater transparency for families of individuals arrested and detained by ICE agents on federal immigration holds. In response, the county directed Orange County Corrections to make it easier for families to identify family members held in the local jail, which  has doubled as a temporary holding center for ICE detainees. Advocates regularly showed up to county commission meetings this year to keep the pressure on and organized press conferences to raise public awareness through media outlets (like Orlando Weekly), too. 

    Standing in solidarity with striking Starbucks workers
    As workers at a unionized Starbucks location in Oviedo joined a national strike against Starbucks this month, within the first week baristas began to see community members from groups like Central Florida Jobs With Justice and the Democratic Socialists of America show up on the picket line to support them, in addition to several candidates running for elected office (and, eventually, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost). Workers at the Oviedo store first voted to unionize in 2022 and have been fighting through their union — Starbucks Workers United — to negotiate a first contract with Starbucks that would cover them and more than 11,000 other Starbucks workers across more than 550 locations who are also unionized. Florida isn’t a state that’s known for being particularly friendly to unions. But unionized baristas locally have told our staff reporter they see their fight as one not just to benefit their own working conditions and livelihoods, but that of future generations.

    Orlando punks raised funds for Palestinian relief the DIY way
    Local DIY venue The S.P.O.T. (RIP) held a Palestine benefit this past February, hosting not just bands but food, clothing and jewelry vendors and a CFL Queers for Palestine booth for information on how to help locally. The lineup for the night comprised nine hardcore and punk bands from all around Florida: Right Effort, Andwhentheskywasopened, Noheartleft, AI Death Calculator, Unregistered Weapon, Bonus, Flowers for Emily, Gravess and Watts. Each band that night had a few words to say regarding Palestine and colonization, often taking the opportunity to remind the crowd of the roots of punk in its resistance to genocide. All told, the gig organizers managed to raise $3,020.68 in donations to be sent directly to Healing Our Homeland, a grassroots women-led organization that has been providing aid and resources to Palestinians since 2016.

    Postal service workers stood up against privatization
    The threat of privatization isn’t new for U.S. Postal Service workers — or the Department of Veterans Affairs, while we’re at it — but under Trump’s second term in the White House, the chance that threat could become reality has felt closer than ever. At least that’s what we heard from postal workers in Central Florida who believe USPS should remain a public service focused on serving communities indiscriminately, not padding the pockets of billionaires. Postal workers in Central Florida and across the country organized rallies this spring to say “HELL NO!” to privatizing America’s mail delivery. 

    Advocates called on Disney to investigate alleged use of low-wage prison labor to fold Disney balloons
    Local members of Central Florida Jobs With Justice stood side by side with formerly incarcerated workers outside Disney World this fall, calling on Disney to disclose that one of their subcontractors is paying Minnesota prisoners an average of 90 cents an hour to fold Disney character balloons. You know, the same balloons that cost customers $45 through a third-party vendor (or more, if you want it delivered to your Disney World Resort hotel room) that Disney promotes. According to the Minnesota Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Anagram International — a manufacturer of Disney balloons — is one of the largest contractors for the Minnesota Corrections System. Local advocates called on Disney to disclose the pay rates for prisoners who fold these balloons and to publicly advocate in support of raising those prisoners’ wages.

    Local public school teachers defied DeSantis’ effort to dismantle their union
    When Gov. DeSantis signed into law a bill in 2023 that aimed to dismantle the state’s teachers unions, teachers across the state rose up to meet the challenge. And that continued this year, as teachers, school psychologists, librarians and other school staff in Central Florida school districts (including Orange and Osceola) voted in favor of keeping their unions certified, as they are now annually subject to a recertification process. For teachers, a union means they get a chance to negotiate higher salaries, duty-free lunches (so they can eat their lunch in peace), stronger paid maternity leave benefits, and generally have a voice on the job, collectively, that otherwise isn’t guaranteed. 

    Orlando’s daily dose of what matters. Subscribe to The Daily Weekly.

    Just a few extra scoops of serotonin for you

    Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings wrote a letter to the U.S. Marshals Service on Monday seeking full reimbursement for jailing ICE detainees

    SB 482 would ban minors from access artificial intelligence chatbot accounts

    This article appears in Dec. 24-30, 2025.



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    Orlando Weekly Staff
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  • California prisoners could get higher wages under new plan — but still less than $1 an hour

    California prisoners could get higher wages under new plan — but still less than $1 an hour

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    SACRAMENTO — 

    For the first time in 30 years, the California prison system plans to nearly double most hourly wages for incarcerated workers, a proposal that comes amid a broader debate over prison labor and a push by progressive activists to prohibit forced labor as a form of criminal punishment.

    The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s proposal calls for eliminating all unpaid work assignments and reducing hours for most prison workers from full-time jobs to half time. Prison officials argue that higher wages will have several benefits, including making it easier for inmates to pay back the money they owe for damage from their crimes. Fifty-five percent of inmates’ wages go toward restitution costs, according to the Department of Corrections.

    “Increased pay will provide a stronger incentive for incarcerated people to accept and retain jobs,” department spokesperson Tessa Outhyse said in an email. “New wages will also help workers meet restitution payments for crime victims and save more money in preparation for release.”

    Approximately 40% of California’s 96,000 prisoners have jobs while they serve out their sentences, according to the department spokesperson, doing laundry and janitorial work, as well as clerking and construction. Their wages generally range from 8 cents an hour to 37 cents an hour, depending on the skill level required for the job. The proposal calls for doubling the wage range, from 16 cents an hour to 74 cents an hour.

    Although prison reform advocates have long argued that wages for incarcerated workers are insufficient, some are dubious about the proposed pay increase. They say the changes will only boost hourly wages by a few nickels and dimes, and the overall daily pay by just a few dollars.

    “We are not asking for a liveable wage, we are asking for a respectable wage,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena).

    “It has made it increasingly difficult for incarcerated people just to provide for their basic needs in prison, be it deodorant or toothpaste, to help pay down their restitution that is owed to victims, helping their families or even staying in contact with their families using the phone.”

    Bradford is a member of California’s Reparations Task Force, which recommended paying fair market value for prison labor and eliminating forced labor as a criminal punishment from the state Constitution. Lawmakers considered a measure this year known as the “End Slavery in California Act” that would eliminate a provision in the state Constitution that allows for involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. It passed the Assembly in September and may be heard in the Senate next year. If passed by two-thirds of the Senate, the change would then have to be approved by voters.

    Prison officials did not respond to questions about whether the proposal to increase wages is related to the discussion about removing involuntary servitude from the constitution. But their concerns helped kill an earlier effort to pass a constitutional ban on involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. In 2022, the Corrections Department told lawmakers that it would cost billions of dollars to pay prisoners minimum wage.

    The cost to taxpayers was one reason state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) voted against the measure last year.

    “I was concerned about eliminating the word ‘slavery’ in the constitution without any detail on how it would be implemented in our prisons and would take power from legislatures to courts,” Glazer said in an interview.

    He said he supports raising wages for prison workers. “But at the heart of it, it’s a budget priority choice issue,” Glazer said.

    Budget projections show California is likely to face a shortfall of at least several billion dollars each of the next three years. The Corrections Department’s current plan to raise wages would not require additional funding from the state budget, spokesperson Outhyse said, because hours would be reduced while wages are increased. She said the budget allocates approximately $10 million a year for incarcerated wages and the proposed regulations “will maximize utilization of that fund.”

    State Sen. Steven Bradford is on the California Reparations Task Force, which recommended paying fair market value for prison labor and eliminating forced labor as a criminal punishment from the California Constitution.

    (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

    Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) said he plans to push the state to consider even higher wages when lawmakers return to Sacramento in January.

    “It always sounds dramatic when you say something is being doubled,” Kalra said. “But going from 8 cents to 16 cents doesn’t really move the needle or give incarcerated workers the dignity they deserve.”

    He plans to revive Assembly Bill 1516, which stalled last year. It calls for the state to study the socioeconomic benefits of ending wages below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for incarcerated workers.

    “To simply raise the wages a few pennies, certainly acknowledges the fact that there is an agreement that incarcerated workers are being grossly underpaid,” Kalra added. “But I think there is a long way to go.”

    A portion of inmates who work in fire crews — and are based in separate conservation camps that provide intensive wildfire training — would see the greatest income hike under the prison system’s proposal, with some going from earning $3.34 per day to $6.68 per day and others from $5.12 to $10.24 per day.

    One category of workers would not receive a pay increase under the plan: About 5,700 inmates hired by the California Prison Industry Authority, a separate employer within CDCR, who are paid on a different wage scale. They work manufacturing jobs that create products such as eyeglasses, office furniture, shoes and license plates that are then sold to state departments. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of these workers churned out face masks for the general population.

    At a news conference Nov. 16, hosted by the Living Wage for All Coalition — a nonprofit group focused on ending sub-minimum wages — advocates and lawmakers criticized the Corrections Department’s wage increases, arguing that the changes are “unethical” and “unjust” because they do not meet rising inflation or ensure living wages.

    Shone Robinson, who was incarcerated for 22 years, said at the news conference that paying restitution while incarcerated was “a large hurdle.” Robinson was convicted in Riverside County of second-degree murder and testified that she acted in self-defense, the Press-Enterprise reported in 1997. Released from prison in 2017, she now works as a life coach at the Anti-Recidivism Coalition.

    “Not only did I pay restitution, but I also had to start my life beyond prison walls. Being locked up at a very young age did not prepare me for what I had to face,” Robinson said.

    The wage increase was proposed as a new regulation of the state prison system and can be approved after a period of public review that ended last week.

    Jeronimo Aguilar, a policy analyst for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, told The Times that he questions whether inmates will just earn the same amount, or even less, as a result of the changes from full-time to half-time work. He also speculates that the state might end up saving money.

    Ultimately, however, he said he doesn’t want to “just blindly oppose this new regulation.”

    “We don’t want folks inside to think we’re opposing it because we want more,” he said. “We might kill an opportunity for them. Going from 8 cents to 16 cents may not be a lot for us, but for an indigent [worker] that’s huge.”

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    Anabel Sosa

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