Correction workers continue to strike in Auburn

Yahoo

08-03-2025

AUBURN, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Some striking Auburn Correctional Facility employees returned to work Friday morning after the Department of Correction and Community Supervision promised they would not face discipline when they returned, and their health insurance benefits would be restored.
'We have guys that had to go back in because their wives are losing cancer treatments over this so now that's the option they had to make. Go back to work or have their wife lose treatment,' Dennis Chapman, a resigned Auburn Correction Officer said.
Chapman had nearly 18 years on the job, but on Thursday he turned in his badge and resigned.
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'Once it was done felt like a weight was off of me. If the conditions don't change and our employer doesn't take the serious steps most of us don't want to work for them anyway,' Chapman said.
Chapman and others on the picket line doubled down on what they've been saying all along; that this strike is not about the money. They want safer conditions for everyone in the prison, officers, nurses, teachers, and inmates.
Chapman remembers a time when the job of a Correction Officer was coveted.
'I'm here because I had cousins that had the job. I was selling cars, and they said try this. We don't tell people anymore to try this,' he said.
Correctional employees have repeatedly voiced their frustrations with the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act which was passed in 2021.
According to The Justice Center, the HALT Act does the following:
Strictly limits the type of conduct that can result in segregated confinement sanctions
Limits placement in segregated confinement to 15 days
Requires alternative rehabilitative measures, including the creation of residentialrehabilitation units (RRU) focused on therapy, treatment and rehabilitation
Prohibits the use of segregated confinement for vulnerable incarcerated populations
Establishes guidelines for humane conditions in segregated confinement
Outlines reporting requirements for DOCCS and the Justice Center
Provides due process protections in disciplinary hearings for individuals who areincarcerated
Chapman explained that the lack of confinement is dangerous for both staff and inmates.
'One of the changes was if an incarcerated person got caught with a weapon. If they wanted to get out of the general population a quick way was to go to the box. They changed it to that now finding a weapon does not qualify, you have to use it,' Chapman said.
With this change, Chapman said an inmate would have to use the weapon on someone else in order to be put in some sort of confinement.
'If you think these guys are going to kill you, what would you do? Would you take that weapon and go cut somebody? Yes and who are you going to cut? You're not going to cut one of the gangsters. You're going to cut the guy that's not affiliated and probably just trying to do his programs and go home to his family whether it's a convict or officer.'
Chapman said his tipping point came after three different correction officers were spit in the face by the same inmate in less than three weeks. The inmate was only given five days in the Special Housing Unit.
'At what level is going to your job and getting spit on not only acceptable but then when you try to stand up and stop it, they take your health insurance they fire you and they throw you on the street?' Chapman said.
While correction employees continue to strike, the National Guard has been deployed to fill in for the workers. As National Guard members passed the picket line in Auburn they were greeted by gratitude from those striking.
Chapman has two sons who are members of the National Guard. They are currently deployed to other prisons in New York State.
'They can't believe it,' Chapman said. 'You've all seen the stories coming out from the guard. That's every shift for us. That happens every day.'
Chapman said that all those on the picket line want to go back to work, but they want to know that they will have safer working conditions when they do.
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