Governor Signs “Bodily Substance” Bill into Law
April 16—Governor Deval Patrick has signed into law a bill that would mandate additional incarceration for prisoners who assault correctional employees with bodily substances.
“Every day, correctional officers face volatile conditions and the risk of exposure to things like HIV, hepatitis and other serious diseases,” said David J. Holway, IBCO national president. “This change in the law will help them reduce that risk significantly.”
The IBCO legislative team lobbied extensively for the change in the law, testifying before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. The law calls for additional sentencing for any prisoner of a jail, house of correction, or state prison who assaults a correctional officer, other employee or volunteer with blood, mucous, saliva, human waste, or other bodily substance. Such prisoners would serve up to an additional two and a half years in jails and houses of correction, and up to ten additional years in state prisons. Those sentences would begin after prisoners had completed any sentences still unserved at the time of the assault.
Norfolk County CO’s Suspension Reversed
An arbitrator has reversed the one-day suspension of a Norfolk County correctional officer, thanks to IBCO Attorney Timothy Bailey.
“The arbitrator correctly ruled that management failed to live by the terms of the contract it agreed to,” said Bailey. “In this case, they didn’t follow the rules in implementing a sick leave abuse policy. Our member shouldn’t pay the price for breaking an unwritten, unpublished rule, and now, he won’t.”
In August 2008, a Norfolk County CO received a one-day suspension for an alleged violation of the department’s sick leave abuse policy. Implemented in early 2008, the sick leave abuse policy called for employees to submit medical evidence for sick leave utilization. Management said that the CO had been accumulated six unexcused absences during the second quarter of 2008 and nine during the third quarter. The CO said that he was absent because of his own illness or a family member’s, and supplied doctors’ notes to the employer when he exceeded ten sick days per year or took three consecutive days’ leave. The CO said he had been unaware of his obligation to submit a medical note for a single day’s leave. The IBCO grieved the suspension and it went to arbitration.
At arbitration, management argued that the contract gave them the right to develop and enforce a sick leave abuse policy. Attorney Bailey argued, however, that the contract did not give management the right to unilaterally develop a policy, fail to explain the details of the policy to employees and then punish them when they break the unknown rules. Norfolk County management had developed a sick leave abuse policy requiring medical documentation for each day following an arbitrary “quarterly threshold” that triggered an automatic suspicion of abuse; however, employees at Norfolk County were never told what actions landed them on the abuse list or how to avoid such punishment in the future.
Because the sick leave abuse policy did not give employees proper notice of what activities entailed abuse, the consequences of abuse, and how to avoid running afoul of the policy, the arbitrator ruled that it failed to meet the just cause standard. Therefore, the CO was suspended without just cause, ruled the arbitrator, and must have the suspension and any losses connected with it reversed.
