SHERIDAN, IL - Workers walked off the job Tuesday in a contract dispute with a private company that provides substance-abuse treatment programs at Illinois' only prison for drug-addicted inmates.

Chicago-based Gateway Foundation says it will use management employees to continue counseling services at Sheridan Correctional Center that have been credited with keeping paroled inmates from returning to prison.

Gateway President Michael Darcy said at midmorning Tuesday that 10 of 53 counselors had crossed the picket line and more planned to but were awaiting Corrections Department approval to enter the prison.

A spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said strikebreakers are a normal part of any walkout. And Anders Lindall said they would be fewer if Gateway hadn't beefed up its payroll with employees sympathetic to the company in the days leading up to the strike.

Lindall also complained that Gateway had slashed its programming after promising a strike would not affect it.

No other operations will be affected because unionized correctional officers are barred from striking by law and cannot honor picket lines at the 850-inmate prison, officials said.

Contract negotiations began in November between Gateway and workers seeking their first contract since joining AFSCME Local 472 last year.

The two sides have not met face-to-face since May 17, and no new talks are scheduled, Lindall said. He said he was unconcerned about picket-line crossers.

"A relatively insignificant group of folks choosing to work when the overwhelming majority are on the picket line is going to happen in any strike situation," Lindall said. "Gateway should be less concerned with crowing about that than they should be with restoring their massive cuts to programs that they vowed wouldn't happen."

Darcy said that while programs have been reduced, "we believe the services we're providing are adequate, and we're hoping this strike is over soon and we'll be able to go back to work."

Darcy dismissed AFSCME's claims that new staff members are replacement workers. He said several employees have been hired recently but that they filled vacancies and the process took weeks.

The union will continue to urge Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the state Department of Corrections to halt the strike by terminating the state's contract with Gateway, Lindall said. Blagojevich aides said he has no plans to intervene.

Contract talks have stalled over efforts to boost wages and benefits of Gateway workers who make 45 percent less than state-employed counselors, according to the union. Darcy said the company opposes union proposals to base wage increases on seniority rather than performance.

Sheridan, shuttered by state budget cuts in 2002, reopened two years later as a model drug-treatment facility that officials hoped would help trim the state's highest-ever 54.6 percent recidivism rate.