Union, state prisons officials reach third deal to end ongoing CO strike by Monday; outlook remains unclear

Yahoo

10-03-2025

Mar. 9—The union that represents New York corrections officers has signed onto a deal with state leadership to bring striking COs back to work, finalizing what is now the third agreement reached between various entities in an attempt to end the weeks-long mass walkout at dozens of state prisons.
In a memo circulated to membership late Saturday, NYSCOPBA and state Department of Corrections officials set a new deadline for officers to return to work and end further penalties for striking. A union spokesperson was not able to confirm that NYSCOBA President Chris Summers had actually signed the deal issued Saturday, although the documents shared by DOCCS bore what appears to be his signature.
For over three weeks, thousands of officers across New York have walked off their shifts, demanding safety changes and commitments to improving their working conditions and pay rates. That strike has been illegal, and while the CO's union has not sanctioned it and regularly advised its members to return to work, union leaders have also been the main negotiators for the striking members.
Under the terms of the latest deal, COs on strike have until 6:45 a.m. Sunday to return to work and secure a 250% overtime boost to their pay for hours worked over the next 30 days, as well as a commitment from the department that they won't be subject to further discipline or legal penalties for striking.
COs who return to work by 6:45 a.m. Monday will not receive the overtime boost, but will be provided all other benefits and commitments outlined in the deal.
All terms of this deal will only go into effect if at least 85% of the COs who worked before the strike, minus those who have resigned, return to work by Monday.
For all who return by Monday at the latest, changes to the overtime pay system will include an extra $100 per voluntary overtime done from Friday to Sunday of each week.
Commitments made by DOCCS in previous deals offered remain largely similar in this deal — a 90 day pause on the rehabilitative programming required for inmates by the HALT Act, a 'circuit breaker' staffing metric to allow ongoing short pauses in that programming when staffing levels are low, and a committee with members of prison staff unions and state representatives to recommend changes to the HALT Act.
Additionally, the union and DOCCS will work with a staffing expert to develop adjustments to facility staffing plans to reduce reliance on CO overtime.
Until the prisons reach a pre-strike level of staffing, 12 hour shifts will be the norm for all COs, with National Guard troops stationed at the prisons stepping in where a CO would otherwise be asked to work a 24-hour shift.
DOCCS will solicit an outside company to provide mail and package security screenings, and the department will look into rolling out airport security-style body scanning devices to be used on all visitors and admittances to prison facilities.
The department will also reverse a previous policy change that told prison administration to treat 70% staffing as the new 100%.
What's new in this deal are the provisions reducing penalties put on striking officers — under state law that bars most public employees from striking, officers who have missed their shifts have had their health insurance coverage canceled retroactive to their first shift missed, and have been charged penalties of 200% of their wage for each shift missed. The state has also pursued civil legal action against over 1,000 officers, and contempt of court charges against a few hundred.
In this latest deal, the state has extended its previous Friday deadline to Monday for officers to return to work and have the legal challenges against them dropped. They've also committed to not enforcing internal penalties, and will rescind any of the terminations that began going out on Monday for officers who return to work.
The deal also includes a formal rescindment of the consent order reached by state and union officials through a mediator at the end of February, which almost no COs accepted the terms of.
The new change, which the union and state officials sparred over for days this week, is a commitment to let officers who return to work pay for COBRA health care coverage for the period of time they did not work their shifts. Previously, state officials said they would not reinstate health insurance coverage retroactively for striking officers who returned to work, something that union leaders were opposed to and refused to sign onto.
Officers who return can also decline to pay for any coverage for the time they missed work, if they don't want to have health care coverage for that period of time. In return, the union will withdraw from the lawsuit it pulled together Friday over the health insurance issue, but the agreement allows individual COs to pursue legal action over the withdrawal of their health insurance.
Additionally, the state Department of Civil Service will analyze a plan to reallocate COs and sergeants to higher pay grades within 2 months of the agreement being successfully implemented.
As the deal reached COs across the state, reactions seemed mixed. COs who have been talking with the Watertown Daily Times on condition of anonymity to avoid potential retaliation, said they were not convinced the deal was enough to convince COs to return to work, and expressed concern that the requirement that 85% of officers return to work before its terms go into effect could be the death of the deal. "I don't see how guys go back to work under these terms," one CO, who returned to work earlier this week, said. "I don't think that number is attainable."
COs still on strike reported that their local members had asked the union to commit to provide any deal with at least 24 hours notice — this deal announced Saturday provided about 10 hours of notice for the first deadline — and that issue could reduce the number of officers accepting the deal as well.
Additionally, the deal seems to indicate that 12 hour shifts will persist until the prisons reach at least 85% of their pre-strike staffing levels, which were already reduced from optimal 100% levels, without accounting for the resignations that have occurred. At least two CO sources indicated they were not willing to return to work without a clear commitment that 12-hour shifts would not become the long-term norm for the prisons.
A statement from DOCCS on Saturday night confirmed that all parties had signed the deal with a Monday, 6:45 a.m. deadline for acceptance.
"The agreement will take effect upon at least 85 percent of staff returning to work," the spokesman said. "No strike penalties have been waived in the agreement."
It remains to be seen if this deal will come together — it represents the third attempt to bring the officers back to work, after two previous attempts failed to get the support of the officers themselves. The strike has been illegal and unsanctioned by the union, and union leaders have urged COs to return to work even as they rejected a deal offered Thursday that aimed to bring officers back on shift. State and union leaders have been meeting daily, typically overnight in Albany, in negotiations that sources close to the discussions described as tense, sometimes hostile and drawn out.
Union support of this latest deal doesn't mean it'll get support from the membership. COs for weeks have quietly expressed a lack of trust in the union, saying they have felt union leaders have not committed to pushing state leaders to take violence issues in the prisons more seriously and change state laws to make the prisons a safer place to work. Even as the state prison system has about half the inmates incarcerated now as at its peak in 1999, violent attacks on staff and other incarcerated people are at historically high levels. A handful of recent incidents put COs on edge, and an alleged incident in early February at Collins Correctional Facility in western New York kicked off these strikes. At the same time, a handful of COs have been arrested and charged with murder or assault over the death of Robert Brooks, an inmate at Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County in December.
Officers on strike across the state were reviewing the deal Saturday night — it remains to be seen if enough of them will accept the terms to put the deal into effect, or if this latest offer will die the way the previous two deals have. An estimated 6,000 officers remained on strike through Friday, the deadline for the second deal negotiated between DOCCS and striking officers directly that largely failed, but concrete numbers have not been provided throughout the entire three-week strike.
DOCCS officials confirmed on Friday that 11 prisons had been taken off of the strike list — but nearly 40 had significant numbers of officers on strike at the peak of the job action, meaning less than half have returned to somewhat normal staff levels at last update. COs reached by the Times said that at least for the north country, striking COs are looking to what the officers at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora decide — if those COs accept the deal, it will likely get broader support in the north country prisons, and if they reject it those other COs will likely do the same.