|
|
| Prison union attacks state management |
| By Sacramento Bee |
| Published: 01/17/2005 |
|
The California prison system's already toxic labor relations is getting even worse, with union leaders seizing on the stabbing death of an officer to accuse top managers of all but giving inmates the go-ahead to attack staff. California Correctional Peace Officer Association President Mike Jimenez said the Jan. 10 slaying of Officer Manuel Gonzalez directly stems from an institutional culture instilled within the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency over the last year by its governor-appointed secretary, Rod Hickman. ''He's the one calling the shots,'' Jimenez said of Hickman. ''When you get to the institutional level, the message is being sent to us that there's a green-light on staff. If an inmate complains on anything we do, it's immediately investigated. If we complain, it's malfeasance. They're making us the bad guys, and this is something that is being handed down from the top.'' YACA spokesman J.P. Tremblay denied that the state's prison reform effort -- spawned, in part, by allegations of officer abuse of inmates -- serves to empower inmates or threaten staff. ''We've always said that public safety and safety of our staff is our primary objective,'' Tremblay said. Tremblay also criticized union leaders for the timing of their remarks. ''It's unfortunate that they are taking this opportunity to air their differences with the secretary when we should all be banding together to help and assist Officer Gonzalez's family,'' Tremblay said. Gonzalez, 43, was stabbed to death by an inmate at the California Institution for Men in Chino. CCPOA leaders and legislators said Gonzalez's death could have been prevented had he been issued a stab-proof vest the union was trying to obtain for its members through the grievance process. Some 300 vests were being stored in the prison's warehouse -- undistributed -- at the time Gonzalez was killed, prison officials said. Jimenez's criticism of Hickman is the latest example of a year's worth of ill-will that has accumulated between the CCPOA and top correctional administrators. Last January, Hickman told a legislative hearing -- called after the release of a bitingly critical federal court report that accused previous correctional managers of being beholden to the union -- that he believed a ''code of silence'' had taken hold among the agency's 31,000 line officers. Both staff and union leaders strongly disputed that officers routinely refuse to report wrongdoing or cooperate in investigations into employee misconduct. They reacted angrily to Hickman's comments, with Jimenez sending out a message to his membership that Hickman had ''completely ignored the hard-working, honest and dedicated men and women who walk the line every day.'' The criticism took on added intensity with Gonzalez' death. Barely hours after Monday's stabbing, CCPOA Vice President Lance Corcoran blamed Hickman's ''philosophy and his lack of leadership'' for the slaying. ''I'm sticking all of it on Hickman,'' Corcoran said. Corcoran, and later Jimenez, accused the YACA secretary and other department officials of playing to the union's legislative, media and court critics by referring to inmates in memos as ''customers'' and ''clients'' and urging prison employees to be more mindful of the prisoners' rights. CCPOA leaders have ridiculed the correctional agency's vision statement that promises, among other things, ''quality services from (the) time of arrest. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think