Protesting mandatory OT – PEF nurses picket outside Attica
Correctional Facility to draw attention to short staffing at DOCS facilities
statewide.
Story and photos by Darcy Wells
Their patients have committed crimes ranging from armed robbery to multiple
homicides and they require treatment for ailments that range from the common
cold to AIDS.
Just 14 full-time nurses care for the nearly 2,200 male inmates at Attica
Correctional Facility in Attica, Wyoming County.
It’s not nearly enough to do the job. In fact, several private agency nurses
have been brought in to fill the gap. They are paid at a higher rate and are not
held to the same standard. An agency nurse is paid $59 per hour while a state
nurse is paid $35 per hour. And agency nurses are not required to work mandatory
overtime.
With staffing levels at an all time low, mandatory overtime is a regular
occurrence that is draining the staff and leaving nurses feeling desperate.
Donna Baker, a nurse 2, is assigned to nearby Albion CF.
“Some of these nurses are working three or four mandated shifts a week, not just
here at Attica, in correctional facilities all across the state,” Baker said.
“Their families are suffering. The community is suffering, in the sense that
they are trying to do their jobs the best they can, but they are exhausted.
“They are discouraged. They are saddened.
They feel like they are just beating their heads against the wall,” Baker said.
Rally cry
Fed-up nurses gathered outside the facility on a Sunday afternoon, March 2, for
an informational picket to let the public know what’s happening behind the
35-foot-high, grey-stone walls.
“We need help,” Baker shouted to the crowd that gathered. “We need nurses! We
need money! We need help!”
PEF President Ken Brynien led the
participants in a rally cry.
“We have to let the governor and Legislature know we are mad as hell and we’re
not going to take it anymore!” Brynien shouted.
The targets, according to Brynien, are the state Departments of Civil Service
(DCS) and Budget (DOB).
“The nursing shortage has been at the crisis level statewide for several years
and the main issue is recruitment and retention,” Brynien said.
PEF President Ken Brynien addresses the crowd.
“You can’t recruit nurses to work in unappealing environments like a state
correctional facility if you’re going to pay them significantly less than
nurses in the private sector.”
According to the state Department of Labor, nurses at Attica top out at a
yearly salary of $50,987, while nurses in the private sector working in the
same county are paid $59,790.
Agency on-board
Management at Attica sympathizes with the nurses, according to PEF’s
labor-management chair at the Department of Correctional Services,
(DOCS) Tom Donahue.
In fact, the DOCS commissioner sent a letter to be read at the rally,
supporting the nurses at Attica and other facilities across the state.
“We need to use that to our advantage,” Donahue said.
“The DCS and DOB should release the funds needed to boost the salaries of
nurses statewide. Our nurses can not continue like this. It’s time for
action,” he added.
State Assembly Member Dan Burling also attended the rally and told the
nurses he will once again vote to end mandatory overtime when the bill comes
before the Assembly.
PEF Region 1 Coordinator Kevin Hintz encouraged those in attendance to make
plans for a trip to Albany on June 10 for a multi-union nurses’ rally.
“I hope to see all of you on those buses headed for Albany in June,” Hintz
said. “Your stories need to be heard. Your representatives need to know they
will be held accountable if they allow the nursing shortage to continue.”
