Danbury prison union leaders were told to vacate their offices by this Thursday after the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons said last week it was canceling a collective bargaining agreement with over 30,000 federal correctional employees.
The instruction came after BOP Director William K. Marshall III posted a message on the bureau’s website late last week, in which he wrote that the union had become “an obstacle to progress instead of a partner in it.” He said it was “time for change,” and then thanked the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi for allowing him to make that change.
“Today, I’m announcing the termination of our contract with CPL-33 effective immediately,” he wrote.
The decision reverberated in the 122 communities that house federal prisons around the country, including Connecticut.
This state is home to one federal prison, the Federal Correctional Institution Danbury, a low-security, mixed-gender facility where Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald J. Trump, once served a 4-month sentence for ignoring a subpoena in Congress’ investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
FCI Danbury houses 1,250 inmates, according to the prison’s website, and its employees are represented by labor union AFGE Local 1661.
The local negotiates its contract with the BOP as part of the national Council of Prison Locals. The union negotiates for job security, fair discipline and safety conditions. Pay and time off are set by Congress.
The current agreement between the federal prisons and their employees was slated to run through May 2029.
“By getting rid of our collective bargaining agreement, they’ve also invalidated all of our local agreements,” said Robert Curnan, president of the Danbury local. “So they can pretty much do whatever they want, as long as it’s not against the law.”
“They’re basically telling us they don’t believe we have any authority whatsoever,” he said.
In the message on the bureau’s website, Marshall said, “This isn’t about taking things away, it’s about giving you more,” adding, “The whole purpose of ending this contract is to make your lives better. Period.”
He said pay, benefits and civil service protections would remain the same, and that employees would not be fired or disciplined without cause and due process.
But the message concerned Curnan. He said the union pushes for critical protections.
For example, the Danbury union advocated for seniority in job assignments; Curnan said he’s worried job placements could be made more arbitrarily now. Also, as a result of the BOP change, local unions no longer have the right to represent employees in disciplinary meetings, he said.
Curnan said that without union advocacy, employees could be moved off of their primary duties to cover staffing shortfalls more often. That could mean teachers being asked to serve as correctional officers, thus leaving educational programs understaffed.
Curnan said moves like this could lower morale and worsen the prison’s staffing shortage. “I have a feeling that conditions are going to decline and people are going to leave,” he said.
