A dozen or so state corrections officers picketed along Highway 99 in Hazel Dell on Wednesday, demanding the right to call for state arbitration on issues of worker safety.
The informational picket outside a state community corrections office, one of 11 such events held around the state Wednesday, came in the wake of the strangling death of a prison guard by an inmate Jan. 31 at the Monroe Correctional Complex and the stabbing of another corrections officer Tuesday at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Three penitentiary units at Walla Walla were on lockdown Wednesday after an inmate stabbed a guard in the head with a pen; two other guards were injured when they came to the aid of their colleague.
Corrections workers called on the Department of Corrections, Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Legislature to take immediate steps to improve staff safety at state prisons.
In Vancouver, members of Teamster Local 117 said state budget cuts are putting them at risk. They said they’re outraged that the Legislature has failed to approve “binding interest arbitration” rights for corrections officers that would give them a place at the table as the state continues to reduce staffing within prison walls.
“Our message is safety — safety for prison staff, counselors, secretaries, nurses,” said Larch Corrections Center counselor Sidney Clark, a prison counselor and Teamsters shop steward. “We are being assaulted.”
Kathy Neumann, a corrections sergeant at Larch and a 26-year employee of the corrections department, said the state has cut too deeply into prison staffing.
“You get in a situation where you don’t feel comfortable,” she said. “They’ve made so many cuts you can’t do your job safely.”
Clark said the union wants the authority to declare an impasse and request third-party arbitration with the state over furloughs for prison workers and such practices as the use of “modified lockdowns,” which keep inmates confined to their cells for more hours each day in order to reduce staffing levels.
Such binding arbitration is available to police officers and firefighters in most of the state’s cities and counties and to jail guards employed by counties with populations of 70,000 or more.
But bills to extend those rights to all corrections officers failed to make it out of the House and Senate Ways and Means committees last week.
Senate Bill 5368 and House Bill 1291 would have extended “binding interest arbitration rights” under the Public Employees’ Collective Bargaining Act to certain juvenile court employees and to all corrections employees, who, like police and firefighters, are prohibited from striking.
Currently, state corrections officers are covered by the Personnel System Reform Act, which does not provide for binding arbitration.
In testimony before the House Labor and Workforce Committee, supporters of the legislation said that in some prisons, corrections officers are outnumbered by inmates 200 to one, and many employees are without radios, handcuffs, body armor or other means to call for help. Kitchen workers are particularly vulnerable, supporters said.
Clark said the Teamsters Union had been told that Gov. Chris Gregoire would veto the bills if they made it to her desk. But Gregoire’s spokesman said that was not accurate.
“The governor did not threaten to veto,” said Karina Shagren. “Were there concerns about fiscal impacts? Yes.”
Jayme Biendl, the guard strangled to death by an inmate at the Monroe prison, was found dead late on a Saturday night in the prison chapel. She had repeatedly complained to her superiors about being left alone with prisoners, according to reports in the Seattle Times and other media.
Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail issued a statement Wednesday praising those who took part in the informational pickets. He said the actions would “help raise public awareness about the potentially dangerous job corrections staff members face each day to help make the public safe.”
However, Vail said in an interview that he does not think binding arbitration is necessary to protect the safety of prison workers.
“We think those kinds of issues can be worked out at the bargaining table,” he said. “The last two times we negotiated with the Teamsters, they didn’t put anything about safety on the table.”
Everyone in the Corrections Department is horrified by the murder of Biendl and the incident in Walla Walla, Vail said. But he added, “I don’t think either incident is related to budget cuts. We’ve had 43 aggravated assaults in the past three years. In the wake of the death of Jayme Biendl, people are paying attention.”
Larch Corrections Center was threatened with closure last fall, but Vail announced in November that the minimum-security prison, located on remote state forest land in eastern Clark County, would remain open and would return to its full capacity of 480 inmates.
Larch employees said Wednesday that the prison is receiving large numbers of inmates from the McNeil Island Corrections Center and is nearly full. The McNeil Island prison is scheduled to close by April 1, saving the state an estimated $6.3 million.
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
