Strike Successful for Oregon Corrections Staff
Non-security personnel from AFSCME Local 2376 (Council 75) working in correctional facilities have finally gotten the respect they deserve, but they had to strike to get it.
Oregon’s Department of Corrections has been reducing the number of corrections officers supervising inmates when they are out of their cells. Inmates are working in kitchens and physical plants, or meeting with counselors or medical staff without a CO in sight. “I am locked in the kitchen and dining room with 25 to 50 inmates for eight hours a day with no security help,” states Randy Ridderbusch, Local 2376 president and a food service coordinator. “I do counts, I do shake downs, I do frisk searches. I’m responsible for their total actions. If a fight breaks out, I’m here.” He says that inmates have access to knives, blow torches, saws and shovels.
Non-security workers had been demanding fair compensation and training to match their duties, but the state wouldn’t listen. Ridderbusch states that’s partly because the group was perceived as passive and lacking solidarity. “State bargainers didn’t believe that we would go on strike, and they didn’t tell the people above them how serious it was,” Ridderbusch says. “The night before we went on strike one of the bargainers came out and said, ‘You guys are really planning on going out on strike.’”
On Oct. 18, more than 700 workers from nine facilities walked off the job and stayed there until the state decided to sit down at a mediation session. Talks began early on the afternoon of Oct. 22 and ended 19 hours later on Oct. 23 when a tentative agreement on a new two-year deal was reached. AFSCME’s bargaining team got what it wanted: a proposal to launch a joint study committee, with dedicated funds that will evaluate what level of security functions each non-security worker actually performs. Based on the committee’s recommendations, salary adjustments will be made to affected employees.
The agreement package also calls for an $1,100 bonus for all employees, a 3 percent wage increase in 2000 and a 2.3 percent hike in 2001. Workers must ratify the contract.
The issues were resolved quickly because more than 90 percent of the workers participated in the strike. “None of us could tell you the words that we have to describe the pride we have in our people,” explains Ridderbusch. “When you walk the lines and you see a lady whose husband is laid off, and she has two children sitting there with her and she was the only source of income for the family, those people touch your heart, make you so proud. The solidarity we have gained is incredible.”
The workers got support from COs in the state’s facilities, who are also AFSCME members. COs joined non-security members on the picket lines, made sure they were fed and helped out with other logistical matters.
As far as respect goes, “our local feels like we are finally being respected by the Department of Corrections,” says Ridderbusch. “The department knows when we say we’re going on strike, we mean it.”
