NY correction officers continue to strike as state moves legal action forward: Were looking for help
The state is turning the legal screws on striking correction officers, as tensions flare inside out-of-control New York prisons and workers picket outside them.State troopers began serving union members out on strike illegally with summons over the weekend as hundreds refuse to comply with last week’s court order instructing them to return to work.“We’re not working for threats, we’re looking for help,” Rebecca, the wife of an Albany-area correction officer, said alongside state Senate Republicans at a press conference in the Capitol Monday.Rebecca declined to share her last name out of fear of reprisal by the state corrections department.Monday marks the eighth day of picketing, which violates New York’s Taylor Law banning public sector unions from striking.The corrections department continued negotiating with a state-appointed mediator and the union for correction officers on Monday.A spokesperson said the talks remain “ongoing.”But the corrections department is also threatening to cancel health care coverage and dock pay for officers on strike.Meanwhile, thousands of National Guard members have been deployed to the prisons.Sources suggest the situation is deteriorating inside with prisoners in understaffed facilities being confined to cells.An inmate was found dead in his cell over the weekend at Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, one of the prisons impacted by the strike.
Authorities have yet to release a cause of death.State police released photos of a bus used by the corrections department that was torched last week.Another was graffitied with the message, “can you hear us now.”It’s unclear whether a deal brokered between the correction officers’ union and Gov.
Kathy Hochul’s administration would even end the strike.The correction officers union has maintained it doesn’t condone the strikes.Brigett, another wife of a correction officer who joined the Senate Republicans Monday, called the union out of touch with its mem...