New York DOC prison strike enters 14th day, and now corrections officers are being fired | Law Enforcement Today

ALBANY, NY - As of Monday, March 3rd, a strike by New York state correctional officers entered its 14th day, prompting officials to start firing employees for failing to abide by a deal to end the illegal strike.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the state's homeland security commissioner, Jackie Bray, said that terminations began on Sunday, March 2nd and that on Monday, the state would begin canceling health insurance for correctional officers who have remained on strike. Their dependents will also lose their coverage.

WKBW reported that the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) said that officers who participated in the strike for more than 11 consecutive shifts received termination notices on March 2nd. 

As of Monday, Bray said that fewer than 10 officers have been fired, while thousands are in line to lose their health insurance benefits. She said in a statement, "None of these actions we take lightly. We have tried at every turn to get people back to work without taking these actions." Correctional officers began walking off the job on February 17th to protest working conditions.

On Thursday, February 27th, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a binding agreement between the stae and officers' union to end the strike. Officers were required to return to work by Saturday, March 1st to avoid being disciplined for striking.

The deal included ways to address staffing shortages and minimize mandatory 24-hour overtime shifts. It also offers a temporary bump in overtime pay, a potential change in pay scale, and the suspension of a prison reform law that strikers blamed for making prisons less safe. The strike itself violated a state law barring walkouts by most public employees.

As the days went on and the workers continued to strike, Hochul threatened deploying the National Guard and then did so anyways to some prisons to fill the spots of the correctional officers picketing. On Monday, Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello said that the number of facilities with striking workers had dropped from 38 to 32.

As of this writing, visiting is still suspended at all state prisons. The deal to end the strike included the 90-day suspension of a law limiting the use of solitary confinement. During this pause the state is to evaluate if reinstating the law would "create an unreasonable risk" to staff and inmate safety. 

The state also agreed to pay overtime for the next month at a rate of 2.5 times regular pay instead of the usual 1.5 times, and within four months, to finish analyzing a union request to raise the salary grade for officers and sergeants. The state and union agreed to staffing and operational inefficiencies at each facility in an effort to relieve strain on existing staff.

Bray said, "No matter when this ends or how this ends, our long term plan must be and is to recruit more corrections officers because our facilities run safer when we're fully staffed." She noted that certain incentives would include a $3,000 referral bonus for existing employees. Bray said, "That work can't really begin in earnest until folks return to work and we end the strike."

While the strikes are illegal under the state's Taylor Law, which prohibits public sector stirkes, DOCCS has yet to make any arrests related to the protest.