Governor Kathy Hochul began firing striking New York State Corrections Officers (COs) and retroactively canceling their health insurance for themselves and their families.
The CO strike began on February 17 across the state involving up to 39 prisons. The reason for the strike is not about pay and benefits, but rather for basic workplace safety and reliable working hours.
The irony of Hochul moving to fire and remove benefits from COs is that on the state's other hand, she is actively looking to hire federal workers who are being downsized from federal agencies. One hand giveth and one hand taketh away!
Striking Corrections Officers cite often being forced into overtime of 24-30 hour shifts and dangerous working conditions for both them and prisoners under New York State’s 2021 HALT Act. The HALT Act limits the consequences for inmates who disobey prison rules. COs say this sets the stage for near-constant insubordination and violence against COs and other prisoners.
In other words, if there are little to no consequences for misbehavior, the situation in prisons quickly becomes the inmates running the show, say many COs on the strike lines.
New York State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar said, “New York State Corrections Officers are striking because the Hochul Administration has failed to adequately protect officers, male and female, from years of inmate assaults spurred on by lax progressive ‘reforms.’ Now, because she failed to do her job protecting state employees, Governor Hochul is erroneously citing the Taylor Law to fire longstanding Corrections Officers, stripping their families of both income and healthcare benefits. It’s outrageous.
A wrinkle in the Governor’s claim that she has the right to fire the COs under the Taylor Law prohibition of strikes might well play out in courts. The Taylor Law was meant to govern union contract negotiations around benefits such as pay, health care, time off, etc. There is an argument to make that workplace health and safety is not a benefit, but rather a basic right that is never up for negotiation – it just exists as an inalienable right of sorts.
Kassar added, ”New York State Corrections Officers have a primary right to safety in the workplace. The State of New York isn’t providing it. It needs to. Get your act together, Madame Governor, and stop blaming Corrections employees for the State’s obvious failures. If you’re unwilling to do your job, the courts need to step in and do it for you. Corrections Officers have a right to personal safety.”
“Instead of coming to the table to END the prison crisis, Albany has sent termination notices to striking officers. They would rather punish anyone speaking out than come to the table and rethink awful policies like HALT”, says NYS Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt (R,C,IP).
NYS Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay (R,C- Pulaski) said, “Working in correctional facilities has always been a highly dangerous and stressful job. But the situation in NY has deteriorated due to pro-criminal reforms that resulted in increased violence inside facilities.”