ACU Remembers Deadly Riot
It was April 11, 1993. Easter Sunday. Inside the prison walls of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, 12 COs — members of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA)/AFSCME Local 11 — were taken hostage by a group of inmates.
The longest prison siege in U.S. history lasted 11 days. Forty-year-old CO Robert Vallandingham was killed, his body thrown into the courtyard.
With the enactment of get-tough-on-crime policies by vote-seeking politicians, prison employees nationwide had been warning lawmakers that facilities were becoming overcrowded and understaffed. Their voices were ignored — until that fateful day in 1993.
That October, AFSCME held the Founding Congress of AFSCME Corrections United, which launched an initiative called "Mandate for Change." The idea was to bring respect and dignity — and much-needed change — to the profession. For three days, COs from across the country came together in Columbus, Ohio, to discuss their mutual concerns and attend workshops on how to deal with such problems as gangs and stress.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Lucasville riot and the establishment of the corrections arm of our union. In the last decade, ACU has worked with lawmakers at the national and state level to advance the interests of COs: Each spring, activists have lobbied the Congressional Corrections Officers Caucus in behalf of important federal legislation; a new law makes a federal inmate’s killing of a CO a federal offense; and corrections members have contracts that include roll call, premium holiday, shift differential and stand-by payments as well as seniority, tuition reimbursement and paid occupational-injury leave.
In addition, ACU has remained the country’s most vocal critic against prison privatization, which demeans the corrections profession by lowering wages and benefits, and causing high turnover rates. Those actions jeopardize the health and safety of employees and, ultimately, the public.
In 2002, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) closed one prison and is trying to shut down another one because of the state’s budget deficit. COs are losing jobs, and prisoners are being transferred to facilities already at capacity. Inmate-to-staff ratios are reaching levels similar to those in 1993 that led to the uprising at the southern Ohio facility, which now employs more than 600 OCSEA members.
On April 11, AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee attended a 10-year-remembrance ceremony at the site of the Lucasville riot. Robert Vallandingham’s widow, Peggy, joined him. "Ohio politicians are acting like they’ve forgotten the lessons of Lucasville," McEntee said to the audience. "They don’t seem to understand that closing prisons, laying off corrections officers and crowding inmates together isn’t the way to close a budget gap. It’s the way to create a disaster.
"That makes our work just as important today as it was 10 years ago when Robert Vallandingham lost his life right behind those walls," noted McEntee. "We’ve got to keep working to take the prisons back. As long as one corrections officer has to work in an overcrowded, understaffed prison, we’ve got to keep fighting."
Says Mike Marette, AFSCME assistant director of corrections: "We’re proud of the improvements in the corrections profession nationwide that ACU has fought so vigorously for. But significant challenges remain ahead for our members, and we will continue to work side by side with them until all prison systems are safe, accountable to the public and managed effectively."
