A Dangerous Job

The news is always filled with stories of police officers who are injured or killed. Yet statistically a corrections officer has a higher rate of assault and injury.

Here's an excerpt from a story in the Dallas News covering the increase in assaults on Texas CO's:

A snapshot of a typical month in Texas prisons – last March, for example – provides a look at the dangers inherent in the job:

•The Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas, went on lockdown in March after 62 inmates – some using broken brooms, socks filled with dominoes and commissary hair gel and dented trash cans as weapons – were found fighting in a dayroom at the facility. Corrections officers used blast dispersion and rubber ball grenades to quell the fight. Four inmates were injured.

•Two weeks later, at the Beto Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas, 17 inmates fought near their cells, resulting in two guard injuries. Nearly six ounces of Top Cop, a type of pepper spray foam, was used.

•And in March at the Beto facility, a 19-year-old female guard was punched in the face by an inmate who had a nail hidden in his fist.
The guard suffered a gash on the left side of her face. The inmate – 49-year-old T.J. Jones, who is serving a five-year sentence for burglary – was transferred to another unit.
The all-male prison, which houses more than 3,300 inmates, has nearly 500 security guards, only a fraction of what the unit says it needs.

*Thanks to AFSCME's Dean Enge for bringing this article to my attention.

New Agreement Passed

The New Agreement has passed overwhelmingly. Thank you!

Tentative Agreement

A tentative agreement has been reached with Hennepin County for our 2008-2009 Agreement.

The negotiating committee strongly recommends the membership accepting this when the ballots come out. Here's the highlights:

-Shift differential to increase $.05 in 2008 & 2009.
-Weekend differential to increase $.05 in 2008 & 2009.
-FTO pay to increase from $1.00/hour to $2.00/hour.
-Vacations: You will be able to cash out up to 40 hours of vacation a year.
-Sick Leave: Add to definition of immediate family the following language, "a person residing in the employees immediate household."

SALARY RATES:

Detention Tech: 2.25% steps in range, 3.4% at max rate in 2008 & 2009.

Radio: 2.25% steps in range, 3.9% max 2008
2.25% steps in range, 3.4% max 2009

Detention Deputies: 2.25% steps in range, 4.4% max 2008
2.25% steps in range, 3.4% max 2008 **
**This would be the largest increase we've ever received and puts our top pay at about $27.24 in January 2009! It also places us back in our historical #2 place behind Ramsey County.

HEALTH INSURANCE RATES:

Employee Only Single: $15 a month - raising to $25 in December 2009
Employee Plus Spouse: $337.18/mo
Employee Plus Child(ren): $258.27
Family: $375.39/mo

HOLIDAYS: The letter of understanding dictating us being able to bank 24 hours of Deferred Holiday will now be added to the Agreement so we don't have to renegotiate this every time.

The negotiating committee strongly recommends the membership accepting this when the ballots come out.