Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - In the hours since a four-day mediation period between union leadership with the New York State Correctional Officers and Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) and state officials representing the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) led to a Consent Award being issued, locally elected Republican leaders are voicing their thoughts on the agreement that hopes to end the ongoing corrections officers strike.
State Sen. George Borrello believes the agreement, which would place a 90-day pause on specific elements of the HALT Act, isn't going to convince corrections officers to return to work.
"It's up to these individual officers to decide for themselves if this is good enough. But this agreement, to me, still doesn't address the primary issues that they have brought up, and that is safety and that, first and foremost, this is a some kind of a convoluted, temporary suspension of the HALT act only when staffing is below a certain level. I'm not sure what that rubric looks like, but the reality is, is that all needs to go away in order to truly restore order," stated Borrello in an interview with WBEN.
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Borrello says even if the agreement was to immediately end the strike, not much will change for the state and the situation it's in.
"We don't know what the future holds, but I will tell you that this strike has also led to more corrections officers deciding not to go back, leaving the profession all together, or transferring somewhere else. There may be a severe lack of staffing, regardless of how this ends," Borrello explained.
State Sen. Rob Ortt will continue to stand with corrections officers whether or not they decide to go back to work. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if many didn't report for duty after Friday.
"Hopefully, we can get through this in the next couple of days and get our COs back to work. But if they don't, I know why. I understand why they're where they are," said Ortt with WBEN. "It's not their fault. This is the fault of, again, failure of political leadership, failure of policy. The people that broke it are going to have to try to fix it, but I don't believe that's going to happen completely. I think you're going to need a change in political leadership from the top on down, if you really want to see different policy when it comes to taking care of corrections officers, and that's not going to happen until November of 2026."