Cal/OSHA vs. The GEO Group

Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters, July 18, 2024

"Even with all the industries where Californians went on strike during last year’s “hot labor summer,” some of the most active sites of organizing in the state may well be a pair of private immigration detention centers in the Central Valley. The Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex facilities, operated by The GEO Group, a Florida-based federal detention contractor, have been a hotbed of activism since the pandemic. But it’s not The GEO Group’s staff agitating for better pay and working conditions. It’s their detainees — immigrants awaiting the outcomes of deportation cases or asylum claims, many of whom also work where they’re jailed, scrubbing bathrooms and cutting hair for $1 a day. ... Labor and immigration policy experts believe it is the first time the state has treated detained immigrants as employees who benefit from workplace safety protections. The case is before a three-member appeals board of Cal/OSHA — the state’s occupational safety and health agency — as California grapples with whether to expand labor rights to state prisoners, including a proposition on the November ballot. Even more novel: The state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health in May sent the U.S. Department of Homeland Security a request not to deport seven complainants for at least two years, under a Biden administration program to temporarily protect immigrant workers who are assisting with labor investigations. “Cal/OSHA cannot properly pursue enforcement action without the cooperation of worker detainees in these situations,” agency chief Debra Lee wrote. It’s “highly unusual, if not unique” for the state to ask federal immigration authorities to temporarily waive deportation for state witnesses against the immigration authorities’ contractor, said Anastasia Christman, senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project."