On November 20, 2019, detainees and prisoners confined in the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County filed this class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs sued the County of Alameda, its sheriff, Aramark Correctional Services, LLC, and ten unnamed defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs, while incarcerated, alleged they were forced to provide uncompensated labor for Aramark Correctional Services, a private, for-profit company. The plaintiffs claimed that Aramark’s failure to provide compensation for their labor and offer equal working conditions to men and women violated the Thirteenth Amendment, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (18 U.S.C. § 1589), the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process clauses, and state law. Represented by a private law firm, the plaintiffs sought compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and declaratory and injunctive relief.

Aramark is a private, for-profit company that hired the plaintiffs to perform industrial food preparation and cleaning services. The plaintiffs alleged that the County coerced them to work for Aramark without pay by threatening to extend their sentences, impose solitary confinement, and withhold meals if they refused. In addition, the plaintiffs claimed that male prisoners were assigned to longer, daytime work shifts, and female plaintiffs were assigned to shorter, nighttime work shifts. That, the plaintiffs claimed, deprived women of equal opportunities to leave their cells and earn money.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss on December 13, 2019. The hearing on the motion was held on March 4, 2020; the court (Judge Jon S. Tigar) has not yet issued an opinion. This case is ongoing.

Bogyung Lim - 03/08/2020


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