Posts tagged Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Stefanik, Hochul spar over rehiring COs who participated in strike
September 10, 2025 // Officers and union officials have said that some of the 2,000 people fired were on approved leave, medical and family leave included. Some came in later that day, expecting to work their normal shift, but were told they’d been fired when they arrived. Under the terms of the Taylor Law, striking employees must be penalized up to two days pay per day on strike, and the state can appeal to the courts for orders to get people back to work under penalty of fine or prison time. Unions are absolutely barred from participating in or encouraging the strike, and can be decertified by the state if they’re found to have done so. The Watertown Daily Times reported in May that the department was proceeding with the grievance process for about 600 people; not everyone was going to get an offer to come back from that, and not all who did get an offer were going to take it. The union said they were working on 3,200 grievances.
How New York Can Prevent Another Prison Worker Strike
March 7, 2025 // The governor should hold both sides to account. She needs a handshake deal with lawmakers to restore some of the discretion that prison superintendents previously wielded to impose solitary confinement in the most extreme cases. Such an agreement can be codified in the forthcoming state budget. In return, state law should require every DOCCS employee to wear a body camera whenever in the presence of an inmate and give the department more latitude in curbing the arrival of drugs and contraband. Finally, Hochul needs to identify and terminate the strike’s instigators. Any capitulation, real or perceived, will tempt other public employees to instigate their own illegal strikes—though some of damage in this regard has already been done.
NEW YORK: Health insurance ending for corrections officers still on strike; National Guard still deployed
March 4, 2025 // The New York State Conservative Party Chairman, Gerard Kassar, released a statement saying in part, “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.”
NY reaches tentative deal to end prison strike by suspending anti-solitary confinement law
March 2, 2025 // A law restricting the use of solitary confinement in New York’s prisons would remain partly suspended for 90 days if corrections officers accept a tentative agreement the state reached with their union to end an ongoing wildcat strike. There will be no departmental discipline for any of the thousands of corrections officers if they return to work by Saturday, according to a memo the governor released. The agreement also includes provisions to reduce mandated overtime, increase the overtime pay rate and temporarily hire retired corrections officers to assist in transporting incarcerated people.
Hochul calls up National Guard over prison strikes
February 19, 2025 // "The illegal and unlawful actions being taken by a number of correction officers must end immediately," Hochul said in a statement. "We will not allow these individuals to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues, incarcerated people, and the residents of communities surrounding our correctional facilities." New York correctional officers have been on strike at several upstate facilities since Monday, though union officials say the job action wasn't sanctioned. The work stoppages — which are illegal under New York law — come in response to a lockdown last week when rioting inmates injured three guards and simmering complaints about understaffing and mandatory overtime in state prisons.