New York – New York governor Kathy Hochul announced an agreement on Thursday night to end a Wildcat strike that has taken the state’s prison system for more than a week.
Hochul said that the State and the union for correctional workers agreed by binding terms after four days of mediation conversations.
Workers must return to work on Saturday to avoid being disciplined by the coup, mediator Martin Scheinman in a seven -page memorandum details the agreement, known as a binding consent award.
The agreement includes changes to address personnel scarcity and provisions to minimize the mandatory shifts of extra 24 -hour hours.
Hochul said that the mediated settlement addresses many of the workers’ concerns, puts the state prison system on the road to safe operations and avoids future unauthorized work stoppages.
“My main priority is the safety of all New Yorkers, and during the last 11 days, I have deployed all possible state resources to protect the well -being of correction officers, the imprisoned population and local communities in New York,” Hochul said in a statement.
The Union, the correctional officers of the New York State AND Police Benevolent Association, Inc., did not immediately respond to a message in search of comments.
The strikers won several key concessions, including a temporary increase in the payment of extra time, a potential change in the salary scale and the suspension of a law of penitentiary reform that blamed for making prisons less safe.
For next month, according to the agreement, the overtime will be paid at a rate of 2½ times instead of the usual payment of 1½ times. The State also agreed that in the next four months its analysis of a union application will end to increase the salary degree for officers and sergeants.
The Reform Law, which limits the use of solitary confinement, will remain suspended for 90 days, while the State evaluates whether to restore it “will create an unreasonable risk” for the safety of personnel and inmates.
The State and the union also agreed to form a committee to study personnel and operational inefficiencies in each installation in an effort to relieve tension in existing personnel.
Correction officers began to leave the working conditions of protest on February 17. Hochul deployed the National Guard to some prisons to take the place of the workers on strike. Labor action violated a state law that prohibits the strikes of most public employees. Several inmates have died during the strike.
Scheinman, an experienced mediator who serves as a permanent referee for major league baseball, the National Hockey League and its unions, said the parties demonstrated “good faith and a huge commitment to find viable solutions for the workforce.”
“What has become clear during mediation is the relationship between the parties and the workforce is tense,” Scheinman wrote in a memorandum explaining the agreement. “No problem, law or politics completely explains the current situation. It is obvious that this erosion did not happen at the same time. “
The National Guard will retire from state prisons as the correctional officers return to work. In the agreement, the members of the National Guard who remain in place will be used to prevent prison workers from having the mandate of working an extra time of 24 hours.
