The Work Release: March Newsletter
The Fight for Criminalized Workers is a Fight for Our Democracy
WRITTEN by Maya Ragsdale, Co-Director
Corporate power is consolidating at an alarming rate, stripping us of rights, protections, and dignity, leaving our democracy and economy in shambles. Those in power wield it ruthlessly and working people are left to bear the cost.
But one thing is certain: we cannot let this chaos and war on working families lead us to despair. We deserve a world where we all can lead safe, healthy, and thriving lives.
The strongest check on corporate power is a strong labor movement, which drives mass political and economic participation. To wield real power amid growing precarity, labor must organize workers who don’t yet fit into traditional union models.
This is where Beyond the Bars come in. One in three people in the U.S. has an arrest record, yet public and corporate policies systematically lock them out of stable jobs, forcing them into precarious, low-wage employment. In their first year post-release, formerly incarcerated workers earn an average of just $10,000. On top of that, probation requirements—like court fees, curfews, and mandatory check-ins during work hours—coerce workers into accepting whatever they can get. The result? A disposable, underpaid workforce without union protections, dragging down wages across industries. Mass criminalization isn’t only a criminal justice issue—it’s a labor and democracy issue too.
For example, temp work has become the default for workers with records because temp agencies placing workers in industrial worksites don’t require background checks. But these jobs come with low wages, little training, no benefits, and unpredictable scheduling. And since the 1970s, when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that temp agencies could legally act as strikebreakers, the industry has played a critical role in reshaping the labor market, fueling corporate power by suppressing worker organizing.
We are fighting for our democracy by investing in the leadership of workers with records, giving them tools to develop and execute winning corporate and public policy campaigns that improve economic mobility by transforming the industries that rely on their labor.
Nationally, we organize and advocate alongside allies in the labor and criminal justice movements to shift the national narrative and policy landscape for criminalized workers, both during and after incarceration. From challenging federal incentives that reinforce temp labor over permanent employment, to confronting prison labor and the economic systems that benefit from it, our work aims to dismantle the structures that lock workers with records out of opportunity.
Statewide in Florida, employers cite state and industry regulations, insurance, and liability concerns as top barriers to hiring workers with records into permanent jobs. Unlike in 38 other states, in Florida, they can reject applicants outright before even reviewing their qualifications. We advocate for state legislation that removes employer barriers to hiring workers with records, expanding their access to permanent jobs across industries.
Locally, we organize temp workers to fight back against temp agencies that provide industrial staffing services, which is a direct extension of mass criminalization. Through our base-building experiment, worker committees demand pathways to permanent employment, livable wages, health & safety protections, and transparency from the temp industry and advocate to eliminate probation work requirements through the criminal legal system.
In short, we bridge movements to rewrite the rules of a rigged economy. The piece that follows gives voice to that struggle.
A Poem For Movement
WRITTEN by Katherine Passley, Co-Director
Detention is not justice, but
violence draped in law, steel
bars and cold walls meant to
hold the surplus. In a world
ruled by capital, our bodies
reduced to commodities,
bought, sold, and caged
so the powerful can feast on
our suffering and call it order.
We are taught to remain civilly obedient
to vote, to wait
to whisper our pain politely,
as if obedience will free us, as
if silence is not complicity.
But no society has survived
the sound of chains breaking.
No cage can hold the storm
that comes when the
oppressed unite and stand in their power.
We are not disposable.
We are the fire they swore
could never spread and the
fighters that rebuild after the
flames are put out.
At Beyond the Bars, our work is deeply personal, and Kat’s poetry, rooted in truth, survival, and resistance, reminds us what’s at stake and what we’re building toward. The fire in her poem isn’t just metaphor, it’s the spark that fuels our organization. This month, we’ve carried that fire into house calls with temp workers, community trainings, research collaborations, and more. Read on to learn about what we moved together in March.
Inside the Work: March 2025
Worker Organizing. Every Tuesday through Thursday, our organizers hit the streets from 12–8 PM, knocking on doors, talking with workers, and making house calls, rain or shine. We knocked on 421 doors in Miami’s northwest corridor and connected with 128 new workers, including 42 temp workers. These weren’t just quick chats—they were deep conversations about second chances, work conditions, and what it means to organize with a record. At our Temp Worker Organizing Committee (TWOC) meetings, 44 workers showed up, many for the first time. Two stepped up as new leaders, excited to take on more responsibility. And six committee members joined us in the field, helping lead house calls and grow the organization themselves. This kind of momentum matters. Every new leader, every conversation, every door knock—it’s how we shift power in industries that rely on our labor but count on our silence. We’re showing up for each other and we’re building an organization that can’t be ignored.
Worker Advocacy. At the federal level, we’re working with allies to reform the WOTC tax credit so people with felony convictions can access stable, long-term jobs, not just temporary placements. At the state level, we met with potential partners to explore a legislative campaign that would reduce negligent hiring liability based on an employee’s criminal record alone and stop insurance discrimination against workers with records. And locally, we are pursuing reforms to eliminate probation work requirements, improving workers’ chances of finding and keeping meaningful employment, while preventing probation from being weaponized by low-road employers to keep workers in line.
Worker Research. This month, we continued to work with students from Harvard Law School and brought on an expert from Blue Pencil Strategies to dig deeper into the realities of temp work for our report, The Temp Trap: Temporary Jobs, Permanent Struggles for Workers with Criminal Records in South Florida. The report will be released in May and will feature data and stories to strengthen our fight for industry-wide reforms.
Worker Education. At our March 16 TWOC meeting, we trained 44 people on how to identify wage theft, which is when employers steal wages by refusing to pay what’s owed, often via illegal paycheck deductions, unpaid overtime, and misclassification as a 1099 contractor instead of a W-2 employee. We also walked workers through steps to fight back and win through collective action and legal pressure.
Worker Support. This month, we provided direct support to members navigating complex systems and urgent needs, including court accompaniment, employment and medical referrals, resume help, wage theft recovery, and probation advocacy. For example, our member leaders provided intensive court support for two fellow members’ children, leading to one release and one five-year sentence reduction. We also began planning our April 27th art and poetry event for Second Chance Month, along with a May Day action for second chances, fair wages, and worker protections.
Movement Building. Two BTB members are participating in National COSH’s We Rise! Workers’ Leadership Academy to bring worker health and safety trainings to criminal justice organizations in South Florida. This month, they’ve been putting together a training on heat protections for our next TWOC meeting—an issue that affects nearly every temp worker in South Florida. We also continued to actively work on the End the Exception campaign, with the goal of bringing labor organizations into the fight to end the 13th Amendment’s exception that allows for prison slavery.
