Endorsement: No on Proposition 6. There’s nothing wrong with requiring prisoners to work.

Everyone — everyone in their right heart, and mind — is against slavery.

Does that mean that Californians should vote for Proposition 6 on the Nov. 5 ballot, whose authors say it is necessary to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime in our state?

Well, it’s not as simple a notion as it’s being presented, and the answer in the end is no — we believe that Proposition 6 does not deserve to be passed by voters, and not because we are heartless.

It’s because there is not, in fact, slavery inside California’s prisons. To pretend that there is is injurious to the fact of the real injustices inside their walls — to inhumane overcrowding and to the abhorrent crime against humanity that is the state’s ongoing overuse of solitary confinement, which prison officials and the governor continue to allow despite excellent, thoughtfully crafted legislation aimed at stopping it.

But what the proponents of Prop. 6 are calling involuntary servitude is really far more a matter of this: Not allowing prisoners who have been convicted of felonies that were injurious to real people, say, in effect, that they can’t be bothered to hold down a job while they are behind bars for their crimes.

Does that seem at all reasonable to you?

All this misdirection about one small facet of incarceration — being told to work, like the rest of us — does nothing to help create the real reforms that our penal system needs, very much including expanding educational opportunities and rehabilitation and, yes, job training for prisoners so that they don’t become part of the revolving door that will soon send them back to prison because they have not been prepared for release.

Skeptical Californians wondering if this proposition is really necessary will be made to feel more than a little churlish, being put into a position of arguing “for” involuntary servitude, as if we wanted to go back to a feudal society with indentured servants.

There is no organized opposition to the measure, while its supporters include the California Labor Federation and the ACLU of California. Proposition sponsor Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, D-Vacaville, says on its behalf: “Involuntary servitude is an extension of slavery. There’s no room for slavery in our constitution, which should reflect our values in 2023. … (it) prioritizes rehabilitation for incarcerated people. Incarcerated people should be able to choose jobs and shifts that allow them to continue their education, use the law library, get counseling, and participate in other rehabilitative programs that facilitate growth and transformation.”

Hold on — of course prisoners should be able to use the library and get counseling. But they’re around the place 24/7 — 365. Are they really getting shifts making license plates that leave them no time for anything else? If that’s actually true, that can and should be fixed through legislation or regulation.

The pay for prisoner labor isn’t great, it’s true — on the order of 74 cents an hour. The firefighters who get out to help take down our state’s ongoing wildfires can make up to $10 a day. But if Prop. 6 passes,  “federal employment laws, including those on wages and benefits, might begin to cover inmates who are required to work,” CalMatters notes. And in California, where the minimum wage is now $16 an hour, that could change everything about the economics of prisoners’ work. Where would that money come from?

When voters see Proposition 6 on the ballot, they must consider the consequences in plain language: Should people convicted of crimes be allowed to refuse work while in prison?

We don’t think so.

Vote no on Prop. 6.