On a sunny Wednesday morning in Los Angeles, a coalition of criminal justice reform advocates asked voters to pass Proposition 6, finally abolishing slavery for the first time in nearly 175 years since California joined the Union. He appealed for a free state.

“We came here to face the unpleasant truth that slavery still exists in our Constitution in our beautiful and great state of California,” said a prisoner with children. Tanisha Cannon, managing director of Legal Services for, told the crowd.

Her message was part of a broader campaign touting support for Proposition 6 as a vote to “end slavery.” Still, according to Official State Voter GuideProposition 6 has nothing to do with slavery.

Instead, the bill would remove a provision in the California Constitution that uses language similar to the 13th Amendment that allows prisons and jails to use “involuntary servitude” as punishment for crimes. is being asked of voters. If passed, Proposition 6 would ban the practice and effectively end forced labor assignments for prisoners.

Proponents of Prop. 6 argue that prison slavery and involuntary servitude involve They claim there is no difference. And they argue that today’s prison labor industry is an extension of laws passed shortly after California joined the union in 1850 that criminalized fugitive slaves and sent them back to plantations in the South.

“Involuntary servitude is another name for slavery,” Cannon said. “Prop. 6 will finally end that cruel practice.”

Despite efforts to establish Proposition 6 as a simple anti-slavery measure, some voters do not read it that way.

A recent survey found that only 41% of likely voters said they planned to vote for Proposition 6. California Public Policy Institute poll. One of the survey respondents, Greg Schulter, a Republican who lives in Oceanside, said Prop. 6 is “very low on the importance scale.”

“We’re already spending tens of thousands of dollars to incarcerate someone. I mean, that’s an astronomical amount of money,” Schurter said. “Working in a laundry, working in a kitchen, things like that are legitimate jobs. Someone has to do them. And it doesn’t make sense to pay $20 an hour for work that civilians can do. .”

The campaign supporting Prop. 6 has raised about $2 million, a pittance in a huge state with multiple expensive advertising markets. There has yet to be a formal challenge to the bill or the money spent to defeat it.

Proponents say Prop. 6 would do more by ensuring incarcerated people have a schedule to attend classes focused on mental health, substance use disorders, anger management, and a variety of other self-improvement programs. They claim that it will allow them to focus more on rehabilitation. Life after prison.

“When we prioritize jobs, that’s the system we have now…it limits the personal growth and successful reintegration of people in our carceral system,” California said. said Rep. Lori D. Wilson, D-Suisun, who chairs the state Legislature. He is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus and authored the bill that put Proposition 6 on the ballot.

The caucus calls for the abolition of forced prison labor as a way to address “the continuing and compounding harms African Americans experience as a result of slavery and its long-lasting effects on American society today.” Supported the recommendation of the California Reparations Task Force.

The bill does not mandate wages or outline working conditions, but details that the Legislature, governor and prison officials could begin bargaining if passed.

Nearly 60,000 inmates are assigned jobs, said Terry Hardy, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Duties include service dog training, construction work, office work, computer coding, hospice care, and janitorial work.

Approximately 5,700 inmates have work assignments under this law. california prison industryoperates a factory that employs incarcerated people to make office furniture, license plates, and other items sold to state government agencies.

Most jobs pay less than $1 an hour, but a select few jobs pay higher wages. For example, inmate firefighters are paid salaries, sometimes up to a maximum. $10 per day.

Last year, prison officials announced plans to nearly double most inmates’ hourly wages. Hardy said unpaid jobs will also be eliminated and most jobs will transition to part-time positions.

Some supporters worry voters will be confused because the voting criteria includes the term “involuntary servitude” rather than “slavery.” Other states that have passed similar measures include: Oregon, tennessee, colorado and nebraskausually included the term “slavery” in the official language, but some of those proposals had little impact on prison labor.

Jay Jordan, a founding partner at the advocacy group Center for Social Good and a longtime criminal justice reform activist in California, said he understands why voters would be skeptical about eliminating work requirements. He said he is doing so. But he said most inmates want to work, and passing Proposition 6 won’t change that.

The move will allow people to instead work part-time and spend the rest of their time attending classes, setting them up for a safe return to their home communities, Jordan said. Additionally, prisons do not have enough jobs for California’s approximately 94,000 inmates and do not have the necessary number of rehabilitation programs, he added. Too many inmates are already sitting around doing nothing productive to occupy their time, he said.

Jordan served seven years in prison for robbery since he was a teenager. He said he spent much of his time painting the beds of Caltrans trucks, earning about 6 cents an hour, or $14 a month. A significant portion of that money went toward paying reparations, and the rest helped stock up on cheap soup from canteens.

Jordan said it took more than six years to finally establish a program to help address issues of substance use and anger management.

“My health actually worsened,” Jordan said of his time in prison. “Let’s make something that actually works.”