ALBANY — The families of striking corrections officers paid the state Capitol a visit Monday, meeting with Republican lawmakers and reiterating their demands that state leaders make significant, permanent changes to laws regulating prisons and punishments used in them.
Since Monday of last week, a wave of so-called ‘wildcat strikes’ has spread through the state prison system, from two facilities around Elmira to at least 37 prisons out of the 42 open in New York by Wednesday of last week. Without approval from union officials, and in violation of state and federal laws restricting public employees’ right to strike, hundreds of COs have walked out of the prisons they work at to demonstrate outside the facilities.
Demands have been broad and somewhat inconsistent, according to news reports and Department of Corrections officials—because the union is not sanctioning the strikes, they’re organized at a facility level with local spokespeople for each represented facility.
Demands have included pay bumps, changes to pension system classifications, policy changes to make facilities more secure, restrict mail and packages, and require all visitors to be body scanned. But the most uniform demand is for state lawmakers to repeal the HALT Act, a bill put into effect three years ago that broadly restricts how long an inmate can be put into solitary confinement and similarly limits the use of disciplinary punishment against incarcerated people.
“Change needs to happen, the HALT Act needs to be repealed,” said Bernadette, a wife of a CO from western New York and someone deputized to speak for the families of striking COs.
The wives argued that state policies, namely the HALT Act, have made it unsafe to be an inmate or a CO at state facilities in New York. They point to data showing that attacks on inmates and on COs have spiked in recent years and said that their husbands report their job quality is lower than ever. They said bodily fluids are regularly flung at them, that inmates regularly look to attack vulnerable officers, and that the list of punishments that can be used to push back on dangerous or antisocial behavior has been shrunk over the years.
Although they spoke at a state Republican Senate press conference, Bernadette and the other women in Albany to speak to lawmakers and the media on Monday declined to share their last names, for fear of retaliation against their husbands who are striking across the state.
State officials have started to crack down on the striking officers. Using provisions of the state Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, known as the Taylor Law, the state first sought a court order finding the COs were in violation of the law and needed to return to work. That was secured Wednesday of last week, the same day the strike had spread to 37 facilities statewide.
State officials first sought to coax COs back to work with promises of a bump to overtime pay, a temporary pause to some provisions of HALT, and promises of further negotiation, but Bernadette said that was simply not enough of a response.
LEGAL PAPERWORK
Over the weekend, state troopers began serving an unknown number of identified striking COs with legal paperwork—the state is taking them to court over their continued striking and could send them to jail for up to 30 days for organizing the strike, a punishment usually reserved for union leadership.
Penalties for striking COs include a plan, potentially already in place, to dock their daily wage for each day of work missed and additionally fine them a second full day’s wage for missing work as well. The state has also communicated to striking COs that they will have to cover the costs of their health insurance, and their families’ health insurance, for each day they strike.
Bernadette said the recent moves by state authorities to punish striking COs are not effective and would not convince those on strike to go back to work.
“If we’re willing to take all that and still strike, imagine how serious we’re taking this,” she said.
Negotiations between the union, Department of Corrections officials, and a state-appointed mediator began Monday—and while the union remains the spokesperson for COs and prison leadership, it’s unclear how much of a hand the organization has in convincing COs to go back to work.
‘THEY HAVE OUR BACKS’
Bridgette, from Oneida County, who declined to share her last name for fear of retaliation, said that COs had seen the union negotiate the most recent contract for its members, which did not include much of what’s being asked for now, and lost faith.
“The officers have lost trust in our union making these negotiations because of the new contract that came through. A lot of officers voted no on it, and the union hasn’t been showing they have our backs, honestly,” she said.
Bernadette did not share Bridgette’s point of view, saying that she personally did trust the union on this issue.
Senate Minority Leader Robert G. Ortt II, R-North Tonawanda, said that he and the Republican conference are standing with the union in these complex negotiations.
“In any union, you’re never going to have 100% agreement, but in the room, on one side of the sheet of paper, you have Governor Hochul, Julia Salazar—one of the people who put HALT in place—and then on the other side is NYSCOPBA,” he said. “I can tell you who has the best interests of the officers.”
Ortt said he didn’t believe the union was at fault for the concerns cited by the officers in their strike and said the blame falls on state authorities that have passed legislation like HALT.
The Senate Republicans on Monday moved to advance a so-called “hostile amendment” in their chamber that, if passed, would have repealed the HALT Act, but it failed to get the necessary votes to pass.
With Republicans out of power and state lawmakers in the Democratic majority seemingly unwilling to negotiate the HALT Act, it’s not clear what the next steps will be.
Bernadette and her fellow CO wives made it clear in the Capitol Monday that their husbands do not intend to return to work without meaningful changes to state law.