ROCHESTER, N.Y. – After three weeks of strikes at New York State prisons, corrections officers on Monday once again have two options – accept a deal and resume work before 6:45 a.m. or continue to strike and face consequences.
The union representing the corrections officers and the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision reached yet another deal late Saturday night, aiming to end the strike. However, guards on the picket line outside Groveland Correctional Facility in Livingston County told News10NBC they have two words for the deal: “no good.”
The latest agreement says the state will rehire and reinstate the health insurance of any guard who was fired or resigned and will work towards ending mandatory 24-hour overtime. But striking guards say it fails to address their biggest concern – permanently eliminating the HALT Act. That’s the policy that limits solitary confinement and guards say it has made prisons more dangerous. Of the dozen or so on the picket line on Sunday, a majority said they wouldn’t be returning to work on Monday.
Geri Kraiza has been bringing supplies to striking guards since day two of the strike. She says she’ll continue standing with the guards for as long as she’s needed.
“I mean, we’ve stood out here and they’ve cried,” Kraiza said. “Their kids hate them. Their wives are so mad at them because they can’t leave, and then they can’t afford to quit their job. But that doesn’t mean anybody, anything to anybody in Albany. They’re not humans. They’re numbers.”
The agreement will go into effect if 85% of striking corrections officers return to work by Monday morning at 6:45 a.m. Gov. Kathy Hochul has deployed the National Guard to serve in the prisons while corrections officers are on strike, and she says she will keep them there for as long as they are needed.
This is far from the first deal that corrections officers have been offered. Guards had until 6:45 a.m. on Friday to return to work and accept a deal that the state offered but the union wasn’t involved in negotiating. Like previous deals, it suspends some parts of the HALT Act for at least 90 days but doesn’t repeal it.
That’s a similar promise to the first deal reached, between union and DOCCS leaders, on Thursday two weeks ago. The deal also agrees to eliminate mandatory 24-hour overtime shifts, screen prison mail with technology to check for hazardous substances such as drugs, and implement programs to recruit more staff. Corrections officers had until Monday to return for their scheduled shifts but the strike continues for many.
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