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Thumbs
 THUMBS UP for our new members in the Lone Star state. In September, Texas Council 7 welcomed some 230 new COs to its ranks. These officers were previously represented by the Communications Workers of America, and joined AFSCME under an agreement with CWA. CO Richard Simmons, president of Local 3806 (Council 7) and a member of the ACU Advisory Committee, says: "Welcome to our brothers and sisters from across the state. It’s good to have us all under one roof — more solidarity that way."
THUMBS UP for the Maryland jury that convicted James Albert West of first-degree murder in the 1996 killing of off-duty CO Amos Williams Jr. The November conviction is the second in the case. In September, a jury found Aaron Devon Footes guilty of first-degree murder. Prosecutors believe that the two men robbed Williams and, after seeing his law enforcement officer’s badge, killed him.
 THUMBS DOWN for New Mexico’s appointed Sec. of Corrections Rob Perry, whose failure to fill staff vacancies is placing increased pressure on already overworked, underpaid officers. (See "ACU Update" for related story.) New Mexico Council 18 says Perry’s a pro-privatization puppet of Gov. Gary Johnson (R) with no experience in corrections and no concern for the officers. Members are currently hard at work on a campaign to block his confirmation.
THUMBS UP for Lori Laidlaw, Dawn Considine and Charlene Bullard of Local 817 (Council 31) at Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Ill. When they heard about an adoption fair for the over 400 children available for adoption in Cook County, the three COs immediately jumped in to offer assistance — volunteering to make cotton candy, run a cookie-decorating contest and do face-painting for the children. The event is designed to bring together prospective adoptive parents with children available for adoption. The three had lots of company on the trip to Chicago — both Considine and Laidlaw, who is president of Local 817, are foster mothers themselves and the seven children living in their respective homes came along to help.
THUMBS UP for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, which ruled that COs at a Rockville detention center must be paid for their half-hour meal period under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court determined that because the officers carry their radios, listen for recalls, may not leave the facility, and intermittently respond to security calls, they are not "completely relieved of duty" and therefore that half-hour is "compensable work" under the FLSA. However, AFSCME Associate General Counsel Neil Ditchek says the picture isn’t as rosy for workers outside of Maryland: "The ruling is a sharp split from the more recent decisions from other courts. Those courts have ruled that, for a half-hour meal period to be compensable, the time must be spent predominantly for the benefit of the employer, as opposed to the benefit of the employee."
THUMBS DOWN for U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel, who ruled in November that the state cannot take money from the $4.1 million settlement awarded to inmates as a result of the April 1993 riot at a maximum-security facility near Lucasville, Ohio. The state attorney general had argued that the money should be used to pay debts the prisoners might owe to a state victims fund, child-support accounts or civil judgments won by crime victims. The judge ruled that prisoners will not control the money directly, but must assign it to an outside third party, at which point the state could go after the money through separate legal actions.
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