A group of jail employees say the city has placed staff’s health at risk by implementing a deficient coronavirus protocol, according to a new court petition.
The 23 employees — who are correction officers, captains and assistant deputy wardens — say the city, the Department of Health and the Department of Corrections have “colluded” to violate public health laws “subjecting plaintiffs to undue exposure of to the COVID-19 toxin throughout the facilities of the Department,” the Manhattan Supreme court petition from late Thursday alleges.
Not only has the DOC been letting inmates and officers move about freely flouting social distancing but they have intentionally kept these bad pandemic policies in place to force worker “absenteeism,” taking advantage of the crisis to enact a long-term goal of reducing the workforce, the court documents allege.
The city has failed “to furnish uniform staff … a place of employment free from the undue exposure of the COVID-19 toxin that is causing and likely to cause serious harm and death to the Department’s employees where uniform staff have already died as a result of exposure,” the court filing alleges.
Inmates aren’t kept at a sufficient distance from each other and the inmates “designated as ‘quarantined,’ are anything but quarantined,” the court documents claim. Also, the facilities aren’t doing enough testing, the court papers say.
The department is using an “obsolete” coronavirus policy “for the purposes of unduly driving up uniform staff’s absenteeism,” the court papers say.
The workforce reduction is actually, “of a permanent nature that had little to do with COVID-19,” the court filing says.
There were 288 inmates infected with the virus at Rikers Island as of Friday, according to the Legal Aid Society.
Legal Aid has filed a series of petitions seeking the release of inmates throughout the state amid the pandemic.
Corrections Officer Benevolent Association also filed a petition claiming that the city needs to provide guards with face masks and hand sanitizer and they need to start testing staff for the virus.
The city, the DOC and the DOH did not immediately return a request for comment.
