COXSACKIE — The wildcat strike by correction officers continued Wednesday afternoon on Route 9W in front of the Coxsackie and Greene Correctional facilities.
State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision [DOCCS] Commissioner Daniel Martuscello released a statement Sunday saying employees who were not back to work by Sunday would be considered to have resigned and those employees must return their DOCCS-issued equipment.
“Nobody out here has gotten any paperwork of being fired or resigned,” Rudy Pavlin, a retired correction officer from the Coxsackie Correctional Facility, said from the line on Wednesday. “Unless they actually physically walked in there and gave their resignation papers.”
About 50 employees who were on the Coxsackie picket line have resigned since Friday, Pavlin said.
James Miller, public information officer for New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, the union representing the striking employees, said he did not know how many employees have been fired or resigned, adding the striking employees have lost their health care coverage.
“Hard to know right now because it's such a fluid situation," Miller said Wednesday. "What I know right now is that there have been people terminated, but DOCCS is doing that sort of piecemeal. Obviously, it's thousands of officers that are still striking. I don't have a good grasp as how many have been terminated.”
The union represents roughly 16,000 employees, including roughly 14,000 correction officers and sergeants, Miller said.
The officers and sergeants feel the union no longer adequately represents them and their interests, Pavlin said.
While on the picket line in Coxsackie on Wednesday, Pavlin shouted at the strikers to say if they feel represented by the union. Everyone on the picket line responded “no,” or with an occasional expletive. Current prison employees on the picket line declined to comment on the strike.
“That little thing that they [NYSCOPBA] did with the mediator that did not address the core issues of anything out here on why these guys are out here,” Pavlin said. “I mean, the union laid down. They didn't support it [the wildcat strike], so they're not really in contact with anybody out here on the line, and then they feel that they can be the voice of these men and women out here, and it's not flying.”
“We mediated based on listening to members and their concerns," Miller said. "This wasn't something that happened on Feb. 17. This has been brewing since the inception of HALT,” Miller said. “On numerous occasions we conveyed to DOCCS and the state that working conditions are getting worse, employees are feeling under appreciated, up until now that has fallen on deaf ears. Everyone has their own opinion on it, but since day one, NYSCOPBA has advocated on the members’ behalf.”
Pavlin predicts DOCCS will, at some point, ask the fired employees to come back to work, he said.
Employees who continued to strike past Sunday risk losing their jobs, health care coverage, and COBRA coverage.
The federal COBRA law ensures that employees who lose their healthcare coverage have the option to continue group health care benefits for a limited time from their health plans when faced with job loss, according to the federal Department of Labor’s website.
Miller said he does not know about the legality of a state government suspending a coverage provided under a federal law.
“It’s too early to say if there will be lawsuits," he said. "Obviously, this gets resolved and then we will get a better indication of the legality of it. All we know is that those that continue to strike have had their health care coverage canceled."
On Tuesday, hundreds of prison employees and their supporters rallied outside of the state’s Capitol building in Albany. Pavlin said the correction officers he knew who went to the rally came back very uplifted and felt like it was a morale boost.
Fewer than 10 officers were fired, Jackie Bray, the state’s Homeland Security commissioner, said Monday.
“None of these actions we take lightly,” Bray said. “We have tried at every turn to get people back to work without taking these actions.”
DOCCS did not respond to requests for comment regarding the number of employees who had been fired since Sunday.
The wildcat strike began on Feb. 17 and had roughly 150 people on the Coxsackie and Greene Correctional Facility picket lines through Feb. 27, when DOCCS reached a mediated deal with NYSCOPBA. An independent mediator, Martin Scheinman, negotiated the deal over a four day period that came to a head in last week’s agreement.
The deal struck between DOCCS and NYSCOPBA included changes to addressing staff shortages and provisions to eliminate mandatory 24-hour overtime, and an overtime pay rate of 2½ times regular pay instead of the usual 1½ and, within four months, to analyze a union request to raise the salary of officers and sergeants.
The strikes were not sanctioned by the union and were called illegal by DOCCS and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who also deployed the National Guard to prisons affected by strikes.
