NEW YORK FIRES OVER 2,000 PRISON GUARDS IN BID TO END 22-DAY STRIKE
STATE DECLARES 'STRIKE IS OVER.’ SAYS MORE THAN 10,000 GUARDS AVAILABLE. NATIONAL GUARD TO REMAIN IN PRISONS
Bare Hill Correctional Facility on Mar. 9., 2025. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Mar. 10, 2025 Last updated: 9:32 PM
"The strike is over," New York State's prison chief, Daniel F. Martuscello III, announced on Monday. "Termination letters have been sent to over 2,000 people who remain on strike."
"Officers and sergeants who did not … return by this morning's 6:45 AM deadline, have been terminated effective immediately," Martuscello said.
The strike began in western New York at the Collins and Elmira Correctional Facilities on Feb. 17. Its cause traces to a new law that limited officials’ power to hold prisoners in solitary confinement and a savage, bloody brawl Correction Officers blamed on that law that broke out in Collins' mess hall in 2023.
Strikes by all public employees are illegal under New York's Taylor Law. Under the Taylor law, striking guards face automatic loss of two days' pay for every day on strike.
At its height, more than 9,000 of the state’s roughly 10,500 active Correction Officers and sergeants were on strike at 38 of the state’s 42 prisons, according to the state agency that manages them, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS.
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."
In addition to the National Guard, DOCCS was pressing parole officers, civilian employees, front-of-jail administrative staff and even its own internal affairs investigators into service just to feed and medicate prisoners.
“This is a state of emergency,” Martuscello, DOCCS' commissioner, declared, “and a situation that is dire for the remaining staff, the incarcerated population and the community.”
So far, according to officials' calculations, the bill for the 22-day long strike is about $70 million.
Striking Correction Officers outside the Clinton Correctional Facility on Feb. 18, 2025. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
At least seven prisoners have died since the strike began.
One of them, Messiah Nantwi, was allegedly beaten by guards at the Mid-State Correctional Facility. Mid-State is across the road from the Marcy Correctional Facility, where Robert Brooks was allegedly murdered by guards on Dec. 9, 2025.
The rebellion continued despite a court order issued by a state supreme court justice in Buffalo ordering the guards to return to work under the Taylor law.
Last week, State Attorney General Letitia James asked the court to jail and fine 145 officers from 29 prisons "for disobedience and/or resistance wilfully offered to the lawful mandate of the New York State Supreme Court." James used the suit to Dox 25 alleged strikers.
All 145 officers have been ordered to appear in court in Buffalo at 11:00 AM on Mar. 11.
The union representing the guards is called the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, or NYSCOPBA. NYSCOPBA negotiated with Gov. Kathy Hochul's office and DOCCS' officials to craft proposed deals to offer to the guards to end the strike.
Negotiations were tense. Gov. Hochul herself unleashed a barrage of F-Bombs on union president Chris Summers last Thursday.
Strikers’ main demand is repeal of the HALT Act.
The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021. 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’ say it emboldens prisoners to prey on other prisoners and attack guards.
Prisioners and their advocates say solitary is tantamount to torture. The HALT Act is needed to make sure New York’s prisons don’t create monsters: that people don’t come out worse than when they went in.
A fourth proposal proffered by the state to end the strike suspends “HALT programs” for 90 days and created a committee to draft proposed changes to the HALT Act. Once proposed changes are composed, presumably they would be submitted to the state legislature for consideration.
The deal’s proposed time-table moves potential amendments to HALT out of the budget negotiations currently underway between Gov. Hochul and the state legislature in Albany. Under state law, the budget is due Apr. 1.
That, in turn, would make any proposed changes a long-shot. Sen. Julia Salazar, chair of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, has to approve proposed amendments. She’s said HALT should neither be repealed nor even amended.
"Our response should never be to repeal the HALT solitary confinement act," Sen. Salazar said last week. "That doesn't make any sense."
Without the leverage the governor holds during budget negotiations, it's not clear how Gov. Hochul, ultimately responsible for managing New York’s prisons, could push amendments to the HALT Act through a legislature controlled by a super-majority of Progressive lawmakers from New York City.
Striking Correction Officers from the Governeur Correctional Facility set up a strike line in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
NYSCOPBA approved the fourth proposal for consideration by members on Saturday. It required all strikers to return to work by 6:45 AM on Monday.
Sunday afternoon, striking guards from the Upstate Correctional Facility said they would continue their strike. They cited the case of a prison nurse who lost an unborn child due to suspected exposure to synthetic drugs as their reason.
"Regardless of who goes back in," one said. "We're going to battle to the very end."
DOCCS said 1,200 guards and sergeants returned to work on Monday, making the total number who returned over 5,000.
"We now have more than 10,000 security staff working or available to work in our prisons across the state," Martuscello said. "We are going to move forward with this team."
It appears this official number include injured guards on medical leave.
The National Guard, Martuscello added, “will remain in place in a support position under the Governor’s direction.”
It is questionable Gov. Hochul will actually be able to fire all 2,000 guards.
The guards' contract gives them the right to demand administrative disciplinary hearings presided over by private arbitrators and that they be completed within 90 days. If they are not, the charges must be dismissed.
DOCCS' simply does not have enough arbitrators to conduct 2,000 hearings in 90 days. Most of the cases will be thrown out. Guards will be legally entitled to back pay and reinstatement.
One of the guards who started the strike at Collins on Feb. 17 spoke to The Free Lance Monday night. He’s also one of the more than 2,000 who stayed on strike Monday instead of going back to work that DOCCS said was fired.
“I'm not happy about it,” he said. “Life goes on.”
“This wasn't just for us,” he reflected. It was “for everyone involved. “ It was “for that nurse at Upstate who lost a child. That's what its all about.”
“I'm going back out,” the man answered when asked what he would do tommorow. “I might go to the court and then go back to the line.”
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