Who we are

13th Forward is a coalition of advocates, grassroots organizations, and impacted people working to end exploitation and brutality within our prison labor system.

Formerly LaborIsLabor, 13th Forward was formed in 2019 by Worth Rises and the Legal Aid Society. Our steering committee is currently led by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, A Little Piece of Light, Sankofa.org, and Citizen Action of New York.  

An invisible, unjust, and exploitative labor system exists inside New York prisons today. Incarcerated workers provide essential goods and services to the community, under forced and often dangerous conditions, for mere pennies an hour - wages that haven’t increased in over thirty years! As we saw during the pandemic, New York’s incarcerated workers produced indispensable products like hand sanitizer, and provided critical services building coffins and digging graves, often working without life-saving personal protective equipment. This past January, more than 900 incarcerated people helped fight the wildfires in Southern California, part of a long-running program that trains incarcerated individuals to help fight dangerous fires, and assists with job placement post release. 

For the past few years, we have been working with state elected officials and impacted people to ensure that the prison labor system fundamentally benefits incarcerated workers and their families, rather than the prison industrial complex. Our campaign supports the passage of four pieces of legislation that would prohibit all forms of  forced labor, raises wages without unfair garnishments, cap commissary prices, protect worker safety and health, and create job training programs that provide real pathways to employment post release.

It is long overdue that we end the exploitation and dehumanization of our fellow New Yorkers!