* This will supposedly save $8 million…
Unionized nurses at a dozen Illinois prisons are being laid off and their jobs privatized, the Illinois Nurses Association said Tuesday.
The union released a copy of a letter from the Department of Corrections that 124 nurses represented by the association will be laid off effective June 15.
The layoffs will occur at a dozen Illinois prisons, including four at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, eight at the Jacksonville Correctional Center and eight at the Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro.
The letter says the layoffs are the result of a “material change in duties and organization due to subcontracting of services …” […]
The letter sent by Corrections to the union says it notified the INA in June 2016 that it might privatize the jobs. The letter also says the union was told in January that the state was going ahead with the privatization and offered to meet with the union about it. The letter says the union declined to meet.
The IDOC letter is here.
* AP…
Alice Johnson, the association’s executive director, noted the notice came just days after the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with state regulators, claiming the first-term Republican governor has reneged on his obligation to negotiate contract terms in good faith. She said members overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement last spring and Rauner is retaliating.
“It’s an attempt to bully and intimidate the nurses, and it’s not going to work,” Johnson told the AP.
She said the move is particularly troublesome because of a nationwide shortage of nurses that forces Illinois prison nurses to sometimes work 80-hour weeks while vacant positions go unfilled. […]
“Wexford is prepared to hire most of the nurses who will be impacted by the layoff,” [Nicole Wilson, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections] said. “The department will work with those who wish to remain employed with the state and will … identify nursing vacancies within other state agencies.”
* Wexford was given a contract by the Quinn administration back in 2011 to administer health care services in state prisons. A 2015 Tribune report wasn’t exactly glowing…
The 55-year-old inmate with a family history of lung cancer was coughing up blood the day he arrived at the medium security Illinois River prison in November 2012.
A nurse sent him away with a container to spit in and told him to report back if it worsened. In a series of visits to the Peoria-area prison’s medical facility, doctors and nurses continued to miss the inmate’s classic signs of lung cancer.
By the time the inmate was finally diagnosed correctly and offered treatment in June 2013, it was too late. He died nine days later.
The details of the inmate’s potentially preventable death was just one example in a scathing 405-page expert report filed in federal court late Tuesday that alleged sweeping problems in medical care at the state’s prisons ranging from unqualified and incompetent physicians and nurses to woeful record-keeping and poor sanitation. […]
The experts found “significant lapses in care” in 60 percent of the cases they reviewed in which prisoners died of natural causes from January 2013 through May 2014.
…Adding… Press release…
Illinois AFL-CIO President Michael T. Carrigan statement following Gov. Rauner firing 124 correctional center nurses
“This action is unconscionable. First, the Rauner Administration makes it nearly impossible for these nurses to do their jobs by not filling vacancies and forcing 80-hour work weeks, then he lays them off to shift taxpayer dollars to yet another for-profit consultant.
“The list of Rauner carnage is growing every day and the citizens of Illinois are the victims. His priorities are wrong-headed and families are getting hurt.
“These nurses should be supported and celebrated for their extraordinary service under trying circumstances. For that they get a pink slip and a private company gets a bonus. Welcome to Rauner’s Illinois.”
…Adding More… Sen. Daniel Biss…
The Rauner administration is trying to privatize nursing in Illinois’ prison system, Senator Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) said Wednesday.
Biss’ comments were prompted by word that the Rauner administration is outsourcing the jobs of 124 prison nurses employed by the Illinois Department of Corrections to a private company. The unionized nurses are represented by the Illinois Nurses Association, and their layoffs are effective June 15, according to a March 18 letter from the administration to the association announcing the changes.
“This appears to be nothing more than a back-door attempt to get around Illinois’ ban on privatizing prisons,” Biss said. “Gov. Rauner is offering up another failed policy that looks like it came straight out of the Trump White House.”
Illinois banned private prisons in 1990. The General Assembly declared that “the management and operation of a correctional facility or institution involves functions that are inherently governmental.” However, the privatization ban does not apply to ancillary services, such as medical care.
“Just last week, Gov. Rauner tried to insist he had the best interests of state workers at heart. This week he’s laying off 124 nurses employed by the state,” Biss said. “The only interests I think Gov. Rauner has at heart are those of his business friends who can make money off state government.”
