Alliance Alert: The Governor’s office, NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) and corrections officers’ union reached a deal to end the officers’ illegal strike late Saturday. Under the agreement, corrections officers will be returning to work today while continuing to pause provisions of the HALT Solitary Confinement Law.
The Alliance for Rights and Recovery joins the HALT Solitary Campaign in voicing deep concerns about the pausing of key provisions of the HALT Law. This law was enacted to end the inhumane and damaging use of prolonged solitary confinement in New York’s correctional facilities. Rolling back enforcement of HALT threatens the safety and dignity of incarcerated individuals, many of whom continue to face abuse and neglect behind prison walls, especially in the face of multiple deaths due to corrections officers actions and strike.
As the HALT Campaign stated, “It’s unconscionable that DOCCS would even consider renegotiating its contract with NYSCOPBA to give them greater power to torture people in their custody, as well as pay increases and amnesty for a work stoppage that has killed people.”
While we are glad to see a deal reached to end the strike, the state must fully enforce HALT to stop the ongoing mistreatment of incarcerated people, ensure compliance with human rights standards, and promote safe, rehabilitative conditions. Solitary confinement has been widely recognized as psychologically damaging, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown individuals and those with mental health challenges.
Our corrections system must become more humane, shifting its focus from punishment to rehabilitation. If we want people to successfully reintegrate into their communities, we need policies that promote mental health, skill-building, and support—not isolation and harm. The Alliance will continue to advocate for a criminal justice system that prioritizes rehabilitation and recovery, ensuring that individuals return to their communities equipped to succeed rather than set up to fail. See below for more information.
Deal Reached in NY Prison Strike amid Threats of Litigation
By Brendan J. Lyons| Times Union | March 8, 2025
ALBANY — A deal was reached late Saturday to seek an end to New York’s prison strike, less than 18 hours after the negotiations between the governor’s office and the union representing thousands of striking correction officers broke down when the administration had refused to agree to retroactively restore health care benefits for employees who began walking off the job last month.
The deal calls for thousands of striking correction officers to return to work on Monday, when the first of three daily shifts begins at 6:45 a.m. But the agreement is contingent on at least 85 percent of the thousands of striking correction officers returning to duty, which is not certain.
Late Saturday, several correction officers contacted the Times Union and said the agreement does not do enough to address workplace safety, so they may not return.
The statement by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announcing the agreement also noted that “no strike penalties have been waived in the agreement.”
The proposed end to the unsanctioned strike, which had entered its 20th day on Saturday, came as the correctional officers union had pledged to file multiple lawsuits against the state.
“Unfortunately, negotiations ended poorly due to the state’s refusal to ensure that health insurance coverage would be made retroactive to the date of the first AWOL (absent without leave) for those who had their coverage terminated,” the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association said in a memo to its members early Saturday morning, less than eight hours after a negotiation session ended with an impasse.
The administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul had, in turn, asked the attorney general’s office several days ago to begin pursuing criminal contempt charges against more than 1,000 correction officers. The corrections department said those actions would be withdrawn against officers who return to work by the deadline.
The union filed a lawsuit Friday that challenges the cancellation of its striking members health care coverage and asserts that the decision violates their collective bargaining agreement, Civil Service Law and due process rights.
The union’s petition was filed on behalf of its members and Eleasha Bieger, who has been a correction officer for 17 years and was on approved sick leave for a medical condition requiring surgery when her health insurance was cancelled by the state, “causing her surgery to be canceled,” the civil complaint states.
“Despite not participating in the strike, she was ordered to return to work, and when she did not comply due to her disabling medical condition, she was threatened with being marked absent without leave (‘AWOL’), making her a direct victim of (the state’s) unlawful and arbitrary actions,” the petition states.
But the agreement to end the strike that was released late Saturday by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision appeared to address that issue in favor of officers who were not on duty during the strike; many had been out of work due to authorized medical or family leave reasons.
“The parties agree to continue to resolve any outstanding issues involving members on pre-approved leave for FMLA, Workers’ Compensation, Paid Parental Leave, long-term sick, bereavement, sick leave at half pay, etc., but not vacation and personal leave, who were ordered to prematurely return to work during the strike,” the five-page agreement states.
In addition, the agreement calls for the union to withdraw its health insurance lawsuit, and says the state will “reinstate, effective immediately and back to the first date of absence, the health insurance of any employee who had their health insurance terminated, so long as the employee pays the Cobra rate for such coverage for the period of termination and so long as the employee returns to work by the deadline and as set forth in (this agreement.)”
Earlier Saturday, the union also said it was filing an improper practice charge and would seek an injunction against corrections Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III, who earlier this week began negotiating directly with striking correction officers rather than their union. In a video news conference late Thursday, Martuscello acknowledged he had negotiated the deal with the striking workers and pledged that he would go around the union and “bring the tenements of that agreement to my workforce.”
But after the union notified its members that it had rejected the retooled agreement later Thursday, the strike continued on Friday. The union, in its statement to members on Saturday, cast that tactic as Martuscello’s “failed attempt to pit membership against one another.”
“Additional lawsuits, grievances, and agency complaints are also planned,” the union said.
The governor’s office and corrections department did not immediately issue any public statements Saturday about the broken down negotiations. The announcement of the agreement, just after 7 p.m. Saturday, also did not include statements from Martuscello or Hochul.
The strike came close to ending on Thursday, when many officers who remained on strike at dozens of prisons voted informally to support the agreement that had been proffered by Martuscello, and which included many key provisions proposed earlier by a mediator. But late in the day, after learning that their union would not sign the agreement, and that it was not binding, the officers reversed their position.
“We agreed to return if and only if the agreement was signed by all parties. It wasn’t,” a correction officer from western New York told the Times Union on Thursday. He said officers had started to dismantle their tents at the prison where he works — to prepare for returning to work on Friday — but then put them back up when the deal fell apart.
The situation grew heated late Thursday when Hochul and corrections union President Chris Summers had a heated telephone conversation in which the governor used expletives, according to two people briefed on the call.
After that exchange, Martuscello drove to the union’s headquarters, confronted Summers and tried to convince him to sign the agreement. Martuscello left without success.
The union pledged that day it would take legal action to prevent the cancellation of workers’ health insurance and to block Martuscello from negotiating directly with its members. It also planned to challenge orders that required correction officers to return to work despite being on approved leave.
The strike has crippled operations at many state prisons and required more than 6,500 New York National Guard troops to be deployed to assist with security. Many of the striking officers had lost faith in their union, whose leaders had last month — prior to the start of the wildcat labor action — blocked delegates from having a strike vote at an executive board meeting.
The agreement includes limits on mandatory overtime and an assurance that officers who have been on strike will be able to return to their jobs without facing discipline.
One of the top concerns of the prison officers has been their perceived inability to adequately discipline inmates who engage in violence, including assaults on staff or other prisoners. They had been seeking a return of a “keep-lock” provision that would not segregate inmates in special housing units but would enable them to be kept in their cells or “cubes” (dormitory living areas) as a form of discipline.
Instead, a committee will review the solitary confinement law and other safety measures. Its members will include representatives of the correction officers union, Council 82, the Public Employees Federation, the Civil Service Employees Association and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. An initial proposal to include representatives from the Legislature — one Democrat and one Republican each from the Assembly and Senate — was deleted from the final agreement.
A spokesman for HALT Solidarity Campaign, an advocacy group that pushes for changes in the correctional system on behalf of prisoners, said that in the wake of two recent incidents in which inmates died after being beaten by correction officers, “It’s unconscionable that DOCCS would even consider renegotiating its contract with NYSCOPBA to give them greater power to torture people in their custody, as well as pay increases and amnesty for a work stoppage that has killed people.”
Many state prisons are operating with roughly 20 to 25% of their normal level of staff, with officers working at least 12-hour shifts every day of the week. The agreement would keep those 12-hour shifts in place until normal operations resume and then return to eight-hour shifts with regular days off when facilities are operating with adequate staffing levels.
Seven inmates have died during the strike, including a 22-year-old man serving a five-year sentence for weapons possession who died after he was subjected to physical force by members of a Correctional Emergency Response team at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Oneida County on Saturday. His death is being treated as a homicide and is under investigation by State Police.
The death of Messiah Nantwi prompted the second homicide investigation in less than four months in which correction officers are under scrutiny for their use of physical force involving the death of an inmate. On Dec. 9, 43-year-old Robert L. Brooks was beaten to death by correction officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, which is next door to Mid-State in Oneida County.
Thirteen correction officers are facing criminal charges in Brooks’ death, including six who have been charged with murder, three charged with manslaughter and one charged with tampering with evidence. Another three officers have agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges and cooperate in that investigation, according to Onondaga County District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick, whose office is handling the homicide case as a special prosecutor.