Oct 13, 2006 4:22 pm US/Mountain
Union Cheers Arbitrator Ruling On Supermax Staff
By Catherine Tsai, Associated Press Writer
FLORENCE, Colo. (AP) ―
Staffing at the Supermax prison in Florence has gotten so low that job hazards have increased for correctional officers watching over the nation's worst terrorists, an arbitrator has ruled.
The arbitrator stopped short of ordering the Bureau of Prisons to hire more staff, but union officials representing Supermax officers said the third-party ruling would bolster their argument to Congress for more prison funding.
"If the most maximum security federal penitentiary is indeed understaffed, what is happening across the entire Bureau of Prisons as far as staffing levels?" asked state Rep. Buffie McFadyen, who testified for the union at an arbitration hearing in May. Her district includes Supermax and 11 other state and federal prisons.
The union had said assaults and threats by inmates increased after the Bureau of Prisons implemented "mission-critical rosters" in March 2005. The rosters include posts deemed critical to the mission of Supermax, an administrative maximum prison that houses prisoners like al-Qaida member Zacarias Moussaoui and Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.
Within two months of the rosters' implementation, two inmates were killed in the first slayings at Supermax since it opened in 1994.
Housing units at Supermax require three officers per shift, but entire housing units were sometimes left unstaffed, and cells were not being searched regularly due to lack of staff, the arbitrator found.
Arbitrator Joseph Lazar ordered the bureau to reduce inherent hazards at Supermax to the lowest possible levels, as called for by a collective bargaining agreement, and not to encourage staff to violate policies to accomplish their duties with fewer staff.
"The agency in fact did not keep its bargain to lower hazards to the lowest possible level," Lazar wrote in a ruling made available Friday by American Federation of Government Employees Local 1302 officials.
McFadyen said she is confident no one will escape from Supermax but that the entire complex that houses Supermax needs a perimeter fencing, a centralized guard tower and proper staffing.
She said minimum staffing levels as outlined in the mission-critical rosters would be sufficient.
McFadyen said the prison was as critical to homeland security as the Defense Department.
She said she would urge Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to hold congressional field hearings in Florence to discuss prison funding.
A prison spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
Union official Mike Schnobrich stressed that the union was not upset with Supermax Warden R. Wiley, whom he said was doing the best he could with limited funding for staffing or overtime and to fill vacant positions.
"Funding issues are the problem," Schnobrich said.
The announcement of the arbitrator's ruling comes after the Office of the Inspector General released a report that found the Bureau of Prisons has not effectively monitored the mail of terrorist inmates, in part because of a lack of enough translators or proper training.
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