{"id":6876,"date":"2025-04-02T13:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T17:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/?p=6876"},"modified":"2025-04-02T14:43:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T18:43:45","slug":"next-steps-for-pef-members-in-the-doccs-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/issue\/volume-43-no-3\/next-steps-for-pef-members-in-the-doccs-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Next steps for PEF members in the DOCCS crisis\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DOCCSApril 3, 2025<\/em> – On\u00a0President\u2019s Day, when stories of corrections officers across the state walking off the job started to circulate, no one could imagine the almost month-long struggle that\u00a0lay ahead for PEF members.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we heard about it, our first priority was the health and safety of our members,\u201d said PEF President Wayne Spence. \u201cThese are dangerous jobs in the best of circumstances and PEF members, without the proper training, should not be doing things like moving incarcerated individuals around inside facilities or delivering food to dormitories without security escorts.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PEF created a form for members to report all issues and filed those complaints with the Public Employee Safety and Health (PESH) program within the State Department of Labor and used them as the basis to create affidavits for use in a possible lawsuit.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Threats of legal action resulted in the union signing multiple Memorandums of Agreement (MOA) with New York State. <\/span>One MOA established an overtime work rate of 2.5 times a members\u2019 regular rate of pay<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Another outlined terms and conditions of employment during the crisis<\/span><\/a>, protecting mainly PEF-represented DOCCS nurses and medical staff from having contact with incarcerated individuals without trained security. Additionally, the State agreed that parole officers would not be assigned to security details inside prisons and PEF employees would be provided with personal alarms.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The union received dozens of reports from PEF members who sacrificed time with their families to work mandated overtime during the crisis, with some clocking 16-hour days and others working for weeks at a time with no days off. A verbal agreement PEF reached with DOCCS gave parole officers a break by eliminating work or on-call assignments the weekend of March 8-9.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On a <\/span>Telephone Town Hall on March 12,<\/span><\/a> PEF members who work at DOCCS or the Corrections Based Operations of OMH were assured that union leadership and staff were doing all they could to make sure members were protected while negotiations to end the strike continued. Additionally, the MOAs signed in February were extended until April 9, 2025. PEF also urged members to continue to share their stories so that PESH could hear the complaints and the union could potentially take legal action.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A third MOA<\/span><\/a> was signed by PEF President Wayne Spence and the Office of Employee Relations on March 13, which authorized the carry-over of vacation accruals in excess of 40 days beyond April 1, 2025. Members now have an additional year to use that accrued time. The new deadline is April 1, 2026.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Negotiations between the corrections officers\u2019 union, NYSCOPBA, and the State resulted in an agreement to end the strike on March 11. As part of the agreement, DOCCS agreed to pause parts of the HALT Act for 90 days, set up a process for scanning legal mail (designer drugs are being smuggled in using that mail), continue the 2.5 times temporary overtime pay for affected staff, and establish a committee to review HALT. HALT stands for Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement. It was signed into law by former Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 31, 2021.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

President Spence has a seat on that committee, along with the following members:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n