STRIKING GUARDS DODGE CONTEMPT CHARGES, LAWYER RAPS 'HEAVY HAND OF HOCHUL'
350 ALLEGEDLY STRIKING GUARDS FACE CONTEMPT OF COURT CHARGES
Mar. 11, 2025
Former New York State Correction Officers dodged jail Tuesday morning for allegedly striking illegally but they're still on the hook for $77 million.
An Assistant Attorney General from James' office said the State was no longer seeking to have the alleged strikers jailed. It was “seeking fines, not arrest.”
Still the guards’ lawyer, Ralph C. Lorigo, decried “the heavy hand of Hochul."
"Her taking away their medical insurance,” Lorigo added. “Her refusal to honor medical leave. To threaten and intimidate them."
On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul directed her state prison chief, Daniel F. Martucello III, to fire more than 2,000 guards who remained on strike. Not counting the military and U.S. Postal Service, it is among the largest mass firing of public employees since then-Pres. Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers in 1981.
Gov. Hochul also issued an executive order barring the fired strikers from any kind of state employment—even though the state is suffering from a shortage of workers.
While the State declared the guards fired, its not clear they will actually be fired because that decision may be up to a private arbitrator, if their union agrees to defend them.
The strike started at the Elmira and Collins Correctional Facilities in western New York Dec. 17, The Free Lance first reported. It spread like wildfire to almost all of New York's 42 prisons. 9 out of 10 guards went on strike.
Prison officials had to activate their "doomsday plan." To replace the striking guards, Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed more than 6,500 National Guard soldiers. Some were sleeping in cells. One said it was “Worse than Afghanistan."
Strikes by all public employees are illegal under New York's Taylor Law. Striking guards face automatic loss of two days' pay for every day on strike and imprisonment for contempt of court.
State Attorney General James sued the union and 331 named guards—later expanded to 350—for striking illegally under the Taylor law. Justice Dennis E. Ward granted James' request for a temporary restraining order and directed the guards to return to work on Feb. 19.
Many strikers ignored Justice Ward's order. It is that order James is seeking to enforce against individual guards, and "arrest" warrants requiring them to appear in court Tuesday morning were issued.
On Tuesday, the Attorney General’s office said the number of strikers it was seeking to have held in contempt dropped to 61, because the rest returned to work.
Some strikers were there to counter-sue for a court order requiring Gov. Hochul to reinstate the health insurance of guards who weren't striking, but were instead out on pre-approved leave of one kind or another.
"There's no rhyme or reason" to the guards targeted by Hochul and James, Lorigo said. "There's nothing in Taylor law that allows them to take away medical insurance."
Court filings by the Attorney General show the State is seeking $3.5 million per day from strikers for 22 days divided by 8,000—about the total number of strikers.
Gov. Hochul said the State’s tab was “approaching $100 million” at a Tuesday news conference. “It’s been wildly expensive.” It created “a very dangerous situation which I called out the second day.”
Justice Dennis E. Ward was not in a hurry to decide anything. That sat sideways with the guards who said they were wrongly caught up in what they called Gov. Houchul's vindictive drag-net. They wanted him to order the State to reinstate their health insurance.
"The judge was more worried about lunch than people with no insurance," a supporter of the strikers told The Free Lance.
"Nobody's too happy about this judge," a striker said. "He wanted to rush because 'lunch hour's coming. He actually said that."
Justice Ward took no action Tuesday morning and adjourned the case to Mar. 20, when a live-streamed hearing will be held.
Still, a striker who helped organize the action from the beginning said it wasn't a waste of time.
"We all met up for the first time," they said. "We talked to guys from Wallkill, Eastern, Ulster, Upstate, everywhere."
Just minutes befor the court hearing, the husband of a prison nurse who lost their unborn child after suspected exposure to synthetic drugs at the Upstate Correctional Facility spoke out and slammed Albany lawmakers for crushing the strike.
“It’s horrifying to me,” Scott Mitchell said in a Facebook video post on Tuesday, “that these people in Albany can’t see this.”
Scott's wife, Savannah, miscarried days after being exposed to suspected synthetic drugs while at work inside the Upstate Correctional Facility on Jan. 22, 2024, The Free Lance first reported yesterday.
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