New York officials have begun firing state prison guards who failed to abide by a deal to end their illegal labor strike, which has now extended into a third week.
Terminations started on Sunday, according to Jackie Bray, the state’s homeland security commissioner, and on Monday, the state moved to revoke health insurance benefits for correctional officers and their dependents who are still on strike.
Fewer than 10 officers have been fired and thousands are slated to lose their health insurance benefits, according to Bray.
“None of these actions we take lightly,” Bray said. “We have tried at every turn to get people back to work without taking these actions.”
Governor Kathy Hochul of New York announced a legally binding agreement to end the strike between the officers’ union and the state on Thursday. As the labor action breaches a state statute that forbids strikes by the majority of public employees, the agreement obliged cops to return to work by Saturday in order to avoid being disciplined for picketing.
The death of an inmate at one of the state’s jails over the weekend prompted state police to open an inquiry.
Officials have declined to provide additional details on what led to his death, but other inmates told The New York Times that Nantwi was brutally beaten by correctional officers.
“True, he was incarcerated, but he was still entitled, like all of us, to basic human dignity and safety,” Stan German, executive director of the New York County Defender Services, said in a statement. “Instead, he suffered a violent senseless death at the hands of state corrections officers operating within a toxic culture that our society mainly ignores.”
Officials have declined to provide additional details on what led to his death, but other inmates told The New York Times that Nantwi was brutally beaten by correctional officers.
“True, he was incarcerated, but he was still entitled, like all of us, to basic human dignity and safety,” Stan German, executive director of the New York County Defender Services, said in a statement. “Instead, he suffered a violent senseless death at the hands of state corrections officers operating within a toxic culture that our society mainly ignores.”
The corrections department said 11 staffers have been placed on administrative leave, pending the results of the ongoing probe into Nantwi’s death.
Mid-State is across the street from the Marcy Correctional Facility, where six guards have been charged with murder in the December beating death of Robert Brooks.
NY CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS REPEATEDLY STRUCK HANDCUFFED INMATE, PICKED HIM UP BY HIS NECK BEFORE HE DIED: A VIDEO
Another inmate, 61-year-old Jonathon Grant, was pronounced dead last month after he was found unresponsive in his cell at the Auburn Correctional Facility amid the ongoing labor strike, although it is unclear if prison staffing played a role in his death.
The manner in which Grant died will be determined by a medical examiner. The public defender’s office that provided legal counsel to him expressed concern that the strike may have impacted medical care for inmates.
On February 17, officers protested working conditions at the state’s jails by going on walkouts.
Guard strikes are a “distraction” from the focus on inmate maltreatment, according to Jose Saldana, director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign.
“To put it more bluntly, guards are holding hostage tens of thousands of incarcerated people, whose basic survival needs are often going unmet, in order to demand even more power to harm those in their custody,” Saldana stated.
Strategies to alleviate staffing shortages and reduce required 24-hour overtime hours were part of the agreement reached between the state and the officers’ union to end the officers’ strike. Additionally, the agreement provides for a possible shift in the pay scale as well as a temporary rise in overtime compensation.
A 90-day suspension of a law limiting the use of solitary confinement was also included in the agreement. During the pause, the state must evaluate if reinstating the law would “create an unreasonable risk” to staff and inmate safety.
Hochul deployed the National Guard to some prisons to fill in for striking workers.
Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello said Monday that the number of facilities with striking workers dipped from 38 to 32, although visits remained suspended at all state prisons.
“No matter when this ends or how this ends, our long-term plan must be and is to recruit more corrections officers because our facilities run safer when we’re fully staffed,” Bray said. “That work can’t really begin in earnest until folks return to work and we end the strike.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to New York Homeland Security and the officers’ union, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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