New York corrections officers strike enters second week over forced overtime, violent conditions

New York corrections officers are striking at a majority of the state’s prisons over forced overtime and strenuous working conditions that they say is the result of a 2022 law change that has made their jobs more difficult, and dangerous. 

The strike, which began last week, has prompted Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul to deploy the state’s national guard to help manage the prisons as the correctional officers refuse to show up to work.

She has also directed state officials to enforce a state law that prohibits state workers from leaving their posts without their union’s permission. 

The correctional officers are protesting “inhumane”’ working conditions, including long hours and changes in prison procedures in recent years that they say make the facilities more dangerous. 

"We raise our right hand to help protect the people of the state of New York, but it's come to this,” Corrections Officer John Bosco told CBS News. 

Correctional officers are often requyired to work long hours because of a long-running staff shortage in state prisons in which staffing is at 70% of the level before it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"Staffing crisis? These guys are being mandated to work 16- and 24-hour shifts, almost on a daily basis. It's a security issue. How can you do that work when you're that tired? This is a highly demanding job," spokesman Israel Sanchez told CBS News. 

The striking corrections officers are also calling for a reversal of the state’s 2022 HALT Act, which they say made the prisons more dangerous and stripped guards of their tools to keep inmates under control. For example, the act reduced the ability for corrections officers to use solitary confinement. 

"Now these guys are all in population, they commit a major offense, they remain in population where they can hurt others and hurt us," the spokesman told CBS News.

Since the legislation took effect, assaults by prisoners on staff have increased roughly 65% in 2024 compared to the same period in 2021, according to a New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision report in December. Violence has also increased between inmates, more than doubling in the first 11 months of 2024. 

Hochul has sought to break up the strike, which was not authorized by the corrections officers’ union. Her negotiator and union leaders are set to meet Monday to discuss terms to the end the strike. But the New York governor is using the state's Taylor Law – which makes it illegal for state employees to leave their posts without the permission of union leadership – to try and force an end to the strike. 

State police began serving court orders to striking correctional officers over the weekend, threatening prison time if they didn’t show up to court and return to work, the Times Union reported.