A New York Corrections Officers strike has ended after a three week standoff between Correctional Officers and the State of New York. According to union leaders, the strike was not officially sanctioned by the union. Approximately 14,000 of the state’s 16,000 correctional officers at 40 of the state’s 42 prisons walked off the job at some point during the strike. The Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, called the strike illegal and promised to punish those who were striking illegally.
According to the NY Times, upon conclusion of the strike, more than 2,000 correctional officers have been fired and those officers will be barred from performing any future law enforcement or civil service jobs. Per the AP, the firing was a result of correctional officers refusing to return to work after a deal had been reached between the State of New York and The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association. The barring of future law enforcement jobs comes from an executive order signed by Governor Kathy Hochul which bars state agencies from hiring any employees who participated in the strike. Governor Hochul claims that her heavy handed actions are necessary as a result of the strike’s violation of the New York State Taylor Law. Under the Taylor Law, public employees who participate in illegal strikes could lose two days’ pay for each day they remain on strike.
Correctional police officers stated that they were striking because of unsafe working conditions and mandatory overtime that they were being forced to work on a regular and repeated basis. Some of the overtime shifts lasted as long as 24 hours and officers were threatened with termination if they did not stay and work the overtime. Officers have been subjected to hazardous work environments and increased violence inside the prisons. Specifically, assaults on prison staff recorded in the first 11 months of 2024 were 1,938, nearly double from 1,043 assaults in 2019. During that same time, there were 2,697 inmate on inmate assaults reported, an increase from the 1,267 assaults in 2019.
The strike comes after years of tensions between the corrections officers and state officials regarding staffing shortages, working conditions and changes in disciplinary procedures administered to the inmates. In particular, New York passed the HALT Act in 2021, which limited solitary confinement as a means of disciplining inmates. Correction officers say this change made prisons more dangerous by retaining violent inmates in general population.
As a result of the agreement between The State of New York and The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the HALT ACT will be suspended for at least 90 days of the ongoing agreement. After 30 days of suspension of the HALT ACT, the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) will use his discretion in determining if reinstating the provisions of the HALT ACT would compromise the security and safety of the correctional officers. The commissioner’s evaluation will be done on a facility by facility basis. The agreement also ended the requirement of a 24 hours mandatory overtime order.
Only time will tell if the agreement reached between the State of New York and The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association has done enough to resolve the concerns of the correctional officers. However, the strike and subsequent agreement has seemed to secure to the Correctional Officers better working conditions for the time being.