FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 05, 2022
January 05, 2022
Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-639-6405/202-374-6491
[email protected]
Union protest against unsafe working conditions at FCC Florence results in approval of pay increase
Categories:
Pay, BOP
Bureau of Prisons grants 10% retention pay and requests administration approval of 25% retention pay
WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Prisons has approved a request from American Federation of Government Employees Local 1169 to provide 10% retention pay to staff at Federal Correctional Complex Florence, south of Colorado Springs, Colo.
The approval was granted three months after the local staged a protest outside the prison complex to highlight unsafe working conditions stemming from the chronic understaffing of the federal prison complex, which has resulted in officers working vast amounts of forced overtime and non-officer employees including medical staff and counselors being assigned to work as correctional officers under a process called augmentation.
BOP previously had approved 10% retention pay for correctional officers at FCC Florence; the latest action extends that additional pay to all eligible staff at the complex.
In addition to granting the 10% retention pay, which is the maximum BOP can offer, the agency agreed to submit a request to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for approval to pay 25% retention pay to all officers and staff. U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado also have asked BOP and OPM to support the additional pay.
“We thank the agency for listening to our concerns and taking action to help address the dangerous understaffing we are seeing at the prison,” AFGE Local 1169 President John Butkovich said.
FCC Florence comprises four facilities: the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp, the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution, the high-security United States Penitentiary, and the supermax Administrative Maximum Facility.
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