'DEAL' PROPOSED TO END NY STATE PRISON GUARD STRIKE
ARBITRATION RULING IS SUPPOSED TO BE BINDING ON UNION, BUT WILL STRIKERS ACCEPT IT?
Correction Officers assigned to the Upstate Correctional Facility turned an abandoned gas station once called the “Purple Pickle” into a headquarters during their strike. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Feb. 27, 2025
A proposed “deal” to end a strike by New York State prison guards has been reached.
The HALT Act is totally suspended for 90 days, after 90 days the HALT Act is temporarily suspended if a facility lacks sufficient guards, screening of legal mail will increase, wages will increase, scheduling methods will change and the National Guard remains in place.
The deal gives immunity from discipline but not Taylor Law fines. Strikers have until Mar. 1 to decide whether to accept it.
“As your union,” a memorandum outlining the deal sent to members Thursday night said,”we must strongly encourage you to end the strike and return to work.”
If accepted, it would end an 11-day old wildcat strike by guards working for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS.
The “deal” is the result of binding arbitration between the union, the state Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, NYSCOPBA, and DOCCS. Legally speaking, both are bound by the decision of arbitrator Martin F. Scheinman, who has been considering both sides’ arguments since Monday. Its Scheinman’s decision to be communicated to union members.
Whether the rank-and-file agree to adhere to the decision remains to be seen.
If they do not, the union’s memorandum warned them of “contempt charges, fines and possible jail time.”
The strike started at the Elmira and Collins Correctional Facilities in western New York Dec. 17, The Free Lance reported. It spread like wildfire. Guards at all but two of New York's 42 prison were on strike two days later.
Last Thursday, Gov. Hochul deployed the National Guard to replacing striking Correction Officers. Some were sleeping in cells. One said it was “Worse than Afghanistan.”
Still, Gov. Hochul had to deploy about 3,000 more .
The strikes started the same week six guards were charged with murder for beating and choking Robert Brooks to death at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. Three more were charged with manslaughter. Two were charged with attempting to cover it up. Three more pled guilty to unspecified charges and are cooperating with prosecutors.
Even before the strike, New York's prison system was facing a crisis. It’s not just fallout from Brooks’ murder. It’s also mass suspected Fentanyl "exposure" incidents, what Inspector General Lucy Lang called "significant workers’ compensation-driven staffing shortages" and a scarcity of new recruits.
A month ago, guards voted no confidence in the commissioner of the state prison system, Daniel F. Martuscello.
"Families are afraid," Kelly Gordon, a gaurd’s wife, told The Free Lance on the second day of the strike. "They're afraid their loved one is gonna get drugged. They're afraid that they're gonna get cut."
While NYSCOPBA says it didn’t sanction the strike, Gov. Hochul ordered DOCCS to meet with its leadership last Tuesday, she said, “to call for an end to the unlawful work stoppage that is causing significant public safety concerns across New York.”
Union leaders used that first meeting to press their striking members’ demands, detailed in a 17-point list circulated by the first strikers at Collins and Elmira.
"We had that list of demands with us and we went through it one-by-one," Matt Keough, Executive Vice President of the group, told The Free Lance.
Gov. Hochul appointed Scheinman last Wednesday and said he would “begin work immediately to return striking correction officers back to work.”
Strikers’ first demand was for repeal of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act. The HALT Act passed the state legislature and was signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021. Strikers’ said it emboldened prisoners to break rules, prey on other prisioners and attack guards.
The HALT Act places a 15-day limit on the amount of time prisoners can be placed in solitary confinement for misconduct. After that, they can be segregated from the general population but must be given rehabilitative programming and allowed 4-6 hours outside of a cell everyday.
Strikers also demanded DOCCS rescind an order to adjust plans to accommodate a permanent 30% reduction in security staff, and improve recruitment to fill the 1000s of budgeted but vacant guard jobs.
The striking guards also demanded immunity from punishment.
Strikes by all public employees are illegal under New York's Taylor Law. Under the law, strikers face automatic loss of two days' pay for every day on strike.
The Taylor law didn't stop 90% of New York’s prison guards from striking.
“9 out of 10 correction workers and sergeants are illegally on strike," Matt Janiszewski, Gov. Hochul's Upstate Press Secretary, told The Free Lance on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, conditions for those confined in New York’s prison deteriorated. Three prisoners died, including a diabetic who prisoners say should have lived.
Guards at one prison even published an Open Letter to Gov. Hochul last Sunday that alarmingly declared they were “trapped.”
“This must end immediately,” Gov. Hochul said in a stern message to strikers on Tuesday.“The illegal actions being taken by a number of individuals is putting the entire state at risk.”
As the governor was speaking, the angry wives of guards visitied the Capital office of Sen. Julia Salazar, who they hold responsible for the HALT Act. The visit prompted Sen. Salazar to issue a statement on X.
Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing striking guards under the Taylor Law, Doxed 25 striking guards on Wednesday.
Responses to the proposed deal appeared on the social media pages of guards and their loved ones soon after news of it broke late Thursday night. Not a single one was positive.
“HALT suspended for 90 days and we go back to being punching bags?,” one questioned.
Others were more succinct: “Pathetic,” “Bullshit” and “Not feelin’ it.”
One promised the strike would “outdo the one in ‘79,” which lasted 16 days.
Someone replied: “We’re betting on it for sure.”
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