NY Rep. Elise Stefanik demands to know if Gov. Hochul knew massive prison strike was brewing: ‘Why did she refuse to act?'
The Republican North Country rep, in a statement first obtained by The Post, said Hochul 'must immediately address' a new report by the prison workers' union largely blaming the state for allegedly ignoring warning signs of the simmering crisis and strike threats.
'What did she know, when did she know it, and why did she refuse to act?,' Stefanik writes in the statement.
3 North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik is attacking Gov. Kathy Hochul over her handling of the illegal corrections officers strike earlier this year.
Hans Pennink
Thousands of corrections officers illegally walked off the job in February, requiring Hochul to deploy over 6,000 National Guard troops to supplement staffing shortages in the problem-plagued facilities.
The memo from the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association issued last week alleged its leadership had showed a top Hochul aide a video of members threatening to strike at an annual meeting weeks earlier, and were told the issue would be raised to the governor.
'The deterioration of prison conditions statewide and the indifference of the State's elected leaders to cries for help from the rank-and-file pushed staff to the breaking point, and then they broke,' the union memo reads.
Stefanik — who is widely believed to be mounting a Republican challenge to Hochul in next year's gubernatorial election — slammed the Democrat for allegedly failing to act to prevent the strike.
'The union representing Correction Officers stated they warned Kathy Hochul before their strike that prisons were a dangerous powder keg, a strike was imminent, and that lives of officers were at risk. Hochul did nothing,' Stefanik wrote.
3 Rep. Elise Stefanik says Hochul 'did nothing' to respond to a 'powder keg' in the state prisons pre-strike.
AP
While the Hochul administration declared an end to the strike in early March, upwards of 2,000 National Guard troops remain to backfill staffing holes at the facilities, which are 4,000 to 5,000 personnel short of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervisions' ideal staffing level, Commissioner Daniel Martuscello wrote in a recent court filing.
The department was already suffering from staffing shortages even before the strike, a report from the state comptroller's office said last month.
A spokesperson for Hochul, in response to Stefanik's statement, accused the congresswoman of condoning the illegal strike and called the corrections officers' demands 'unrealistic.'
'Unlike Congresswoman Stefanik, Governor Hochul does not condone breaking the law. Corrections officers who joined the illegal work stoppage earlier this year knowingly put both the incarcerated population and their fellow officers at risk. Walking off the job because an unrealistic list of demands isn't met is unacceptable and illegal,' a rep for Hochul's office wrote in a statement.
3 A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul called illegally striking corrections officers demands 'unrealistic'.
Hans Pennink
'Instead of issuing empty statements, Governor Hochul will keep focusing on real reforms that improve conditions for everyone in DOCCS facilities, including incarcerated individuals and the employees who serve there,' the statement said.
The Hochul rep emphasized that corrections workers have received a pay bump since the strike. The spokesperson also noted that the state tried to pause the requirements of a solitary confinement law that the agency claimed it was unable to implement considering its dire staffing levels, but a court ordered them to resume.
A spokesperson for NYSCOPBA declined to comment saying the report speaks for itself. The union also declined to share the video it says showed the Hochul administration official in February.
The union, which found itself at odds with its members during the illegal strike is up for contract negotiations with the state in May 2026, per its memo.
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