STRIKING PRISON GUARDS HOLD HOCHUL HOSTAGE; DEFY GOVERNOR, FORCE NAT'L GUARD DEPLOYMENT
'NOBODY BELIEVES YOU' GUARDS TELL NEW YORK GOV. KATHY HOCHUL
Sign placed by striking state prison guards outside the Riverview Correctional Facility, Feb. 19, 2025. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Feb. 19, 2025
National Guard soldiers started patrolling New York's state prisons on Wednesday after Gov. Kathy Hochul and a judge ordered striking guards to return to work, without effect.
By Wednesday night, guards at all but two of New York's 42 prison appeared to be on strike—the two are work release facilities in New York City.
Two striking guards summed up strikers' sentiment after watching the minute-and-a-half long video lecture Gov. Hochul broadcast on Wednesday that concluded with an order to "Do your jobs."
"Well, too bad nobody believes you," one guard said to the other, who agreed by paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln.
“You can't fool all of the people, all of the time,” the second guard said.
As is the strikers' custom, the two refused to disclose their names.
Two striking New York State Correction Officers watching Gov. Kathy Hochul’s video speech ordering them to return to work. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
The pair were standing in front of an abandoned gas station in the center of three state prisons near the Canadian border outside Malone. Striking guards from all three prisons turned it into their headquarters. It was sunny and bright but a freezing cold 10 degrees as the sun set. About 150 of them were there, with piles of chopped wood to burn in metal barrels to stay warm.
It was the third day of a wildcat strike officially unsanctioned by their union, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, or NYSCOPBA. It's also illegal under New York's Taylor Law, which bans strikes by many kinds of public employees, including Correction Officers.
The guards' strike began at two prisons in western New York Monday morning and spread to at least 25 of the state's 42 prisons by Tuesday, state prison officials confirmed.
To manage the chaos, the Commissioner of the agency that manages New York's prisons, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, activated the agency's "Doomsday Plan."
Gov. Hochul also threatened to send in the National Guard, a threat she fulfilled on Wednesday.
She activated 3,500, a late afternoon news release said, to "support and supplement current correctional staff on site to ensure safety and security with tasks including distributing meals and medication to incarcerated individuals and help maintain general order and wellness in the facilities."
One of the first units arrived at the Attica Correctional Facility.
Meanwhile, the union and the state started negotiating, both sides confirmed.
While NYSCOPBA says it didn't approve the strike, they're representing the renegades, Matt Keough, NYSCOPBA's Executive Vice President, told The Free Lance on Tuesday. Keough said they boiled down strikers' demands to three and presented them to negotiators from Gov. Hochul's office and DOCCS.
Keough wouldn't reveal what those three demands were, but on Wednesday The Free Lance obtained a letter the union sent to members stating them:
"(1) no penalties for members who have walked off the job; (2) suspension of HALT or persistent holiday schedule to ease the burden on staff; (3) to pay-grade increase for all COs and sergeants to help with recruitment and retention."
Recognizing the remaining issues could be negotiated once striking guards return to work, the union demanded ongoing negotiations to resolve "all outstanding financial, staffing, and working condition issues before an independent mediator to begin immediately."
On Wednesday, Gov. Hochul said she appointed a "highly respected independent mediator Martin Scheinman who will begin work immediately to return striking correction officers back to work."
Striking state prison guards and their supporters at the (1) Bare Hill, (2) Franklin and (3-4) Upstate Correctional Facilities. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
The Free Lance visited picket lines at eight prisons in New York's North Country on Tuesday and Wednesday. While the precise percentage of guards striking at each prison was difficult to ascertain, it appeared a majority of guards were striking at all eight. Some facilities had enough staff to maintain perimeter security patrols, but some needed help from the State Police, troopers said.
Some guards remained at work inside, but many of these were trapped there when the strike started by bosses who refused to allow them to leave.
At the Clinton Correctional Facility, striking guards stood across the street from the maximum security prison's entrance and chanted "SCAB!" at guards who entered or left the prison and refused to join their ranks.
At the medium-security Riverview Correctional Facility, guards stopped a delivery of food to the prison because an apparently union truck driver refused to cross the picket line, according to a celebratory social post by one of the guards there.
A small contingent of guards assigned to the Gouverneur Correctional Facility protested outside the prison itself, but a majority occupied the parking lot of Mullins restaurant along the area's main road, Route 11. There they burned wood in barrels and planted protest signs in gigantic mountains of snow piled high from a recent storm.
A handful stood on the side of the road with signs encouraging passing drivers to honk their support. Most did.
(1) Strikers’ sign outside the Riverview Correctional Facility; (2) picket line of striking guards in front of Riverview; (3-4) strikers from the Governeur Correctional Facility protesting in the parking lot of a restaurant on the area’s main road. Photo credits: JB Nicholas.
Late Wednesday afternoon, a judge in Erie County granted a petition by state Attorney General Letitia James and ordered the guards to "immediately" stop "a strike or other concerted stoppage of work or slowdown."
The serious situation was not without levity.
Strikers received a lot of donations, everything from gallons of coffee, scores of pizzas, to truckloads of firewood. But the “Lavish in Brasher” salon recognized some guards who were working inside the prisons when the strike broke out have not been allowed to leave.
The salon donated "spa flip flops for the COs to wear in the shower who are locked in."
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