Correction officers to picket job fair over bargaining issues

By JAMES MERRIWEATHER
Dover Bureau reporter
08/07/2002

A gathering of 85 correctional officers decided Tuesday to picket a Department of Correction job fair scheduled Aug. 17 in Dover.
The pickets would be aimed at discouraging potential correctional officers from applying for the work, and thus could aggravate chronic shortages of security personnel in the state prison system.
But negotiators for the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware said picketing would be a good way to make taxpayers aware of a public-safety issue while prodding the department toward good-faith bargaining on working conditions.
"Fortunately, we're short-staffed," said Cpl. J.R. Morris of Webb Correctional Facility in Wilmington. "If we had a lot of people, we'd be in trouble."
No formal vote was taken Tuesday among officers gathered at Elk's Lodge No. 1903 off Del. 8 in Dover. But there was no dissent as rank-and-file officers boisterously endorsed picketing to call attention to their cause.
Beth Welch, spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction, described the picketing plans as distressing and counter-productive. As of Tuesday, she said, 115 correctional officer slots were vacant.
"It is disappointing that a group that espouses public safety would try to negatively impact our effort to hire new officers needed to help us maintain our public safety mission," she said.
The call for pickets represents a high-profile, hardball approach to bargaining promised before officers voted in June to affiliate with the new association after eight years with the Delaware Correctional Officers Association. The approach was underscored by a two-year agreement to take on Teamsters Local 103, based in Glen Burnie, Md., as bargaining agent for the association.
Ultimately, the goal is better pay - $24,310 is the starting salary now - and pensions after 20 years of service instead of the current 30. Action by the Delaware General Assembly is needed to accomplish those goals.
A more pressing issue is reaching an interim agreement to govern working conditions until negotiations yield a long-term contract. According to Morris, such interim agreements have been used since a three-year contract expired in October 1999.
After two negotiating sessions, the association's
leadership has accused the state of failing to bargain in good faith - an assertion that triggered the picketing call from association president William R. Gosnell of Sussex Correctional Institution near Georgetown.
Association negotiators said the department has refused a union proposal to essentially lock in current institutional assignments and work schedules, which would tend to prohibit involuntary transfers, temporary assignments and mandatory overtime until a longterm contract is in place.
Officers also complained about existing policies that allow for escalating penalties after four nonscheduled work absences, whether for sickness or other reasons.
"The way I see it, they want to punish me for taking something they give me as a benefit," said Cpl. Allen Deal of SCI, the association's first vice president. "But they say no, that it's a privilege."
Welch said it was curious that the union essentially had declared an impasse after two bargaining sessions. But she had no further comment on the progress of negotiations.
"We disagree with their assessment," she said, "but we will not negotiate this contract in the press."
So far, about 700 of more than 1,500 eligible officers have joined the new union. Thomas H. Ridgley, the Teamsters local president and the officers' chief negotiator, said the apparent lack of unity might ultimately undermine the push for better pay and working conditions.
"What we need to see is more cohesiveness on the inside with you people," he said.
Reach James Merriweather at 678-4273 or jmerriweather@delawareonline.com.