LANSING —The union for Michigan corrections officers is pushing back against a plan to give $10,000 raises to new officers at only some Michigan prisons, calling the measure an ineffective Band-Aid and a slap in the face to officers at other understaffed facilities.
Michigan Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington announced the planned pay hikes May 29 for recruits hired for a northern region training academy that begins July 20 in Kincheloe for assignment to five prisons in the Upper Peninsula.
New officers at Marquette Branch Prison, Baraga Correctional Facility, Alger Correctional Facility, Kinross Correctional Facility, and Chippewa Correctional Facility will receive starting pay of $28.24 per hour, up from $23.45 currently, Washington said in a news release. The new starting rate is about equal to what corrections officers currently receive after two years of service, the news release said.
“We are confident this incentive will be a strong tool for hiring in Upper Peninsula regions where recruitment has historically been challenging due to a variety of factors,” Washington said. “Officers currently at these worksites are working tirelessly to operate their facilities in a safe and secure way around the clock.
She said the pay hikes are part of her “Safe Prison Initiative” announced in March amid complaints from officers about increased prison strife and violent inmates being moved into lower-security settings as a cost-saving measure.
But Byron Osborn, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, said in a June 1 letter to Washington that many of the state’s 26 prisons are severely understaffed and any increase in starting pay should be statewide and permanent.
“Anything less than that is disparate and a slap in the face of the other prisons that are also suffering with high vacancy rates,” Osborn said in the letter, which he provided to the Detroit Free Press upon request.
Osborn said the union was not consulted on the proposed pay hikes and called the Safe Prison Initiative a “charade … created to deflect the public focus MCO put on you over the dangerous conditions in the prisons.”
Osborn said in the letter that current officers should get priority over recruitment because “it doesn’t matter how many get hired when they don’t stay.” Experienced officers are leaving for numerous reasons that include excessive forced overtime and unsafe conditions, he said.
An MDOC spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email seeking a response to the criticism from Osborn.
Washington said in her news release that it is “the department’s desire that current officers at the selected facilities who are currently below the $28.24 hourly pay rate will be brought up to the increased wage,” and the department has opened discussions with the union on that subject.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Corrections officers balk at plan to raise pay only in U.P. prisons
Reporting by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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