ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 47.4 on April 9, extending the state’s disaster emergency for correctional facilities. The order now remains in effect until May 9, 2025, and it revises policies from the earlier order.
The new order revises Executive Order 47.3, apparently shifting the focus from disqualifying striking workers to providing more tools to support correctional facilities. Executive Order 47.3 blocked the hiring, transfer, and promotion of employees of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision who joined the strike.
It required state agencies to check a candidate’s past employment with DOCCS and not hire anyone fired for participating in the strike. The order also suspended or modified parts of the Civil Service Law, County Law, Municipal Home Rule Law, Correction Law, and Criminal Procedure Law to stop job transfers and changes of title and invalidate training certificates.
EO 47.4 cancels some of those earlier suspensions and modifications, dropping the bans on transfers, promotions, and rehires of fired correction officers for counties, cities, towns, and other municipalities. But the blacklist remains in effect at the state level, according to a clarification from the governor’s office.
However, the rule on training certificates remains. The governor’s office said correction officers who participated in the strike would still have to be recertified before they could find work in law enforcement.
The updated order also adjusts Sections 134 and 135 of the Civil Service Law and Section 19(4) of the Correction Law to pay extra or overtime wages to staff and superintendents. Plus, it gives the state the power to buy food, supplies, services, and equipment for affected local governments and other entities, temporarily modifying Section 97-G of the State Finance Law. The order alters Section 112 and Section 163 of the State Finance Law to add work, sites, and time to state contracts without following the standard procurement process.
Hochul cited the unsanctioned strike that began in February and lasted for 22 days to justify the ongoing emergency declaration. State officials have maintained that the strike broke the Taylor Law.
Strikers—whose union, NYSCOPBA never sanctioned the strike—cited forced overtime, low staffing, and problems with enforcement after the New York state legislature enacted the Halt Act to justify the strike. They have maintained that conditions for correction officers are unsafe.
Critics of the strike theorized that the strike represented a coordinated campaign to distract from the death of Robert Brooks and poor conditions within facilities.
Hochul’s budget amendments included a provision to close up to five state prisons by April 2026. The state prison population fell from a peak of around 70,000 in 1999 to under 33,000 today.
Related video: New York blacklists prison guards who struck:
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