The settlement, finalized in May and made public this week, marks a significant win for immigrant rights advocates who have spent years pushing California lawmakers to bring private, federally run detention centers under closer state scrutiny. Eight such facilities currently operate across the state, and the number of people held in them has climbed sharply since President Trump returned to office.

The case dates back to the pandemic, when state lawmakers passed legislation granting California workplace safety inspectors access to detention facilities. In 2022, after fielding complaints from advocacy groups and detainees held at the Golden State Annex facility in McFarland, inspectors with Cal/OSHA opened an investigation and ultimately cited GEO Group for labor violations. Regulators alleged the company failed to stop the spread of COVID-19 among detained workers and did not take other necessary safety precautions.

The case is believed to be the first instance in which the state formally treated detained immigrants as employees — and the companies running their detention facilities as employers bound by California labor law.

Immigrants held in ICE custody are typically detained for civil immigration violations, not criminal offenses. Still, many participate in a voluntary work program inside detention centers, cleaning common areas, preparing meals or cutting hair for fellow detainees, tasks for which they are paid just $1 a day. Detainees often take part so they can afford items from facility commissaries or pay for phone calls to relatives.

As part of the settlement, GEO Group agreed to strengthen its illness-prevention protocols for detained workers and dropped its challenge to a state ruling issued last year that determined the company is subject to California labor law. In exchange, the state agreed to withdraw its citations. Neither GEO Group nor Cal/OSHA responded to requests for comment on the agreement.

The dispute over detention conditions is far from settled elsewhere in the state. Detention operators and federal immigration officials have repeatedly clashed with state and local regulators seeking access to facilities. Last month, a federal judge sided with San Diego County health officials, ordering the Department of Homeland Security and its contractor, CoreCivic, to allow a county inspector into the 1,400-bed Otay Mesa Detention Center near the U.S.-Mexico border. Days later, CalMatters reported that CoreCivic sold that facility, along with another one in Kern County, to the federal government.

Meanwhile, as several federal lawsuits challenge the $1-a-day wage paid to detained workers, GEO Group successfully lobbied ICE last month to revise its detention standards for contractors, according to the Washington Post. The updated standards now state that detainees “are not entitled to wages or benefits under applicable labor laws or wage regulations.”

Original source: CalMatters

UPDATE:

“A settlement has been reached affirming that private immigration detention facilities, operating under contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for civil detention, including those managed by the GEO Group, a Florida-based for-profit prison company, are subject to California’s workplace safety and health requirements.

The settlement also leaves intact the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board ruling that civil immigration detainees who participate in facility work programs may participate anonymously in proceedings before the Appeals Board acknowledging the potential for retaliation when individuals raise workplace safety concerns.

Every worker deserves a safe and healthy workplace and should be able to report workplace hazards without fear of retaliation. Individuals who perform work in these facilities are entitled to workplace safety protections, and this settlement reinforces Cal/OSHA’s commitment to enforcing those protections and safeguarding vulnerable workers.

Cal/OSHA will continue to enforce California’s workplace safety and health laws as applicable under the facts and law governing each case including ensuring the settlement in this case is complied with.”

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A standards board at the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health voted unanimously to adopt safety measures that require employers to provide cooling areas and monitor workers for signs of heat illness when indoor workplaces temperatures reach or surpass 82 degrees.

If temperatures climb to 87 degrees, or workers are made to work near hot equipment, employers must take additional safety precautions by cooling the work site, allocating more breaks, rotating out workers or making other adjustments.

The new rules still must undergo a procedural legal review. If that review process is expedited the new rules could be in effect by late July or early August. Otherwise, they are likely to be in place by October.

Thursday’s vote marked the end of more than five years of delays in the effort to strengthen the state’s requirements for indoor working conditions. Most recently, a scheduled vote on the rules in March was cancelled after finance officials from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration raised last-minute concerns about the costs California prisons and other public entities would incur trying to adhere to the new rules.

In light of those concerns, the rules were amended to exclude state and local correctional facilities.

During a public comment period before the board voted, several people urged the board to pass the long-awaited measure.

Tim Shadix, legal director at Warehouse Worker, an advocacy group, said it “would be a tragedy,” if workers become sick from heat exposure this summer and hoped to see the rules in place “well before the end of summer.”

AnaStacia Nicol Wright, a policy manager at Worksafe, voiced concern about the decision to exclude correctional facilities, which employ tens of thousands of people in “archaic buildings with little protection from temperatures.”

Wright pressed the board should move swiftly to put pass separate protections for correctional staff and incarcerated workers.

California, in 2006, became the first state in the nation to implement heat standards for outdoor work, requiring employers to provide access to shade and water, and cool-down rests when workers need them. In high heat conditions, defined as temperatures of 95 degrees or higher, employers are required to remind workers of safe practices, encourage breaks and drinking water, and observe them for signs or symptoms of heat illness.

In 2016, the California Legislature turned its attention to indoor conditions, directing the Cal/OSHA to develop an indoor heat standard by 2019. The agency drafted a proposal mirroring the state regulations that protect outdoor workers, but the rule-making process moved slowly, blowing past the 2019 deadline.

Thursday’s vote came against the backdrop of recent shake-ups on the board that approved the rules.

Earlier this month, the Newsom administration removed worker safety expert Laura Stock and demoted David Thomas from his position as chair of the board after they criticized the 11th-hour decision to delay the vote in March.

Head of the California Labor Federation Lorena Gonzalez criticized the move, saying neither she nor other labor leaders had been consulted in advance.

“Obviously, we are disappointed. We think it’s a big loss for the board,” Gonzalez said. “We hope it’s not retribution for standing up for workers on heat standards.”

In recent years, as the state has experienced record-breaking heat waves, cooks, warehouse workers and delivery drivers have repeatedly raised concerns about high temperatures.

Victor Ramirez, who has worked in various warehouses in the Inland Empire over the past two decades, most recently at a facility in Fontana operated by Menasha Packaging, said many of the warehouses he’s worked in did not have air conditioning or fans. In recent years, fans and air conditioning have become more common, but they “aren’t very effective and those warehouses still feel hot,” he said.

“We need this rule in place right now. Workers need protections, they need training so they know the dangers of the job and working in heat,” Ramirez said. “It’s a basic right to work in a safe environment.”

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