DOC scales back ‘punitive’ sick leave policy
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The Department of Correction, under the new leadership of Commissioner Louis Molina, scaled back it’s sick leave policy for correctional officers this week. Photo by Michael Appelton/Mayoral Photography
By Jacob Kaye
Only a week into his new job, New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina appeared to be getting along better with the correctional officers union than his predecessor did.
Earlier this week, the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association announced that the DOC’s sick leave policy was being scaled back, and officers, who have missed work in high numbers throughout the past year, would have fewer barriers to calling in sick.
“The sick leave policy created by [former] Commissioner [Vincent] Schiraldi was both punitive and ineffective and actually resulted in correctional officers having to be out sick longer than necessary,” COBA President Benny Boscio said in a communication to union members. “As part of my earliest discussions with Commissioner Molina, we asked him to change the Schiralid era policy to make it fairer.”
Officer sick leave was at the center of a fight between Schiraldi and the union. Thousands of officers, who are granted unlimited sick leave as per their collective bargaining agreement with the city, were missing work each day in 2021 as violence in Rikers Island increased.
In August 2021, Mayor Bill de Blasio passed an executive order that said that officers out sick for more than one day were required to provide proof of their illness. De Blasio and Schiraldi had both accused officers of abusing the unlimited sick time policy and further alleged that COBA had encouraged its officers to miss work in a lawsuit the city dropped a few days after it was filed.
Under the new sick leave policy, officers must inform the DOC that they won’t be coming in because of illness. However, they won’t be required to show proof of illness until their third consecutive sick day.
“We have humanely adjusted our policy to align with the momentary medical issues that people deal with in day-to-day life, that don’t necessarily require a physician,” a DOC spokesperson told the Eagle.
On Tuesday, around 2,600 of the DOC’s 7,800 uniformed personnel were out sick, according to the DOC.
During the week of Dec. 21, 2021, the latest week data is available for, around 40 officers were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to DOC data. Throughout the entirety of the pandemic, around 2,500 DOC staff members have been diagnosed with the virus, data shows.
The spike in COVID-19 cases throughout the city and state is particularly pronounced among the incarcerated population in Rikers Island, where the vaccination rate is far lower than throughout the rest of the city.
On Jan. 4, the latest day data is available, around 500 people incarcerated in the city’s jails tested positive for the virus – the positive test rate was around 32 percent on a 7-day average.
