Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As strikes continue at correctional facilities across New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul is preparing to send the National Guard to assist corrections officers who are still working on Wednesday.
Executive Vice President of NYSCOPBA, Matt Keough says the union tried to reach out to Hochul to find out what role the National Guard will have, but did not receive a response.
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"I don't know how the government of the state of New York would deploy the National Guard. I don't want to assume anything or make any comments that, because I'm not aware of how they're going to deploy the National Guard. This is as new to me as it is to some of the folks that are participating," stated Keough in an interview with WBEN.
State Sen. Rob Ortt says he's also not sure what the National Guard will be doing once they arrive at the correctional facilities, but if they're there to act as corrections officers, that's going to create an entirely new set of problems.
"You're really making our prisons potentially even more dangerous by inserting folks who are no doubt trained, but they're trained in skill sets that that may gel with the situation you're putting them into in prisons," said Ortt in an interview with WBEN. "They are not corrections officers. Many of them will not be trained in that role, and to ask them to do that job, I think, is putting them at a heightened risk, and potentially, certainly even putting inmates at a heightened risk. So for those out there who are concerned about inmates. I don't think this is great for them, either."
Ortt explains that another issue the state needs to take into consideration is the fact the current corrections officers probably aren't going to have a functional working relationship with the National Guard soldiers.
"I think it certainly exacerbates a situation where you have corrections officers, who I'm sure are not going to be thrilled about soldiers taking doing their work in the prison. You're you're putting two groups of people cut from the same cloth, people who want to serve, people who are are serving, and you're putting them, you're pitting them against each other, which is not great," Ortt stated.
Congressman Nick Langworthy (R, NY-23) says the strikes are considered illegal, but he's not sure what will happen if the corrections officers decide to stay on strike while National Guard soldiers make their way into the correctional facilities.
"This is really unprecedented. It's something that we're seeing here for the first time, at least in modern history, where they've defied their unions rules, and they've gone on strike because they can't seem to get the attention of the decision makers in Albany," said Langworthy with WBEN. "It is critically important that people in public life, people in a public level of responsibility. I'm a federal official, but if I sit idly by and say nothing while my constituents are suffering, then I'm not doing my job. I think these corrections officers and many of them live in my district, have been mistreated for far too long, and it's about time Albany wakes up and gets with the program."
Langworthy feels sending in the National Guard is disregarding the problems that corrections officers are currently dealing with, and is shocked that Gov. Hochul would want to escalate it to this.
"Is she going to run the jail for the National Guard, or is she going to try to break a strike? I mean, these are supposedly people in Gov. Hochul and her party that are the champions of unions, yet you have an organized group of employees that are just asking for fair treatment. They're just asking for the peace of mind," Langworthy said. "There's risks with every profession, and this is a very risky one, but the likelihood of them getting injured on the job is going up every single day."