Message from Andre Phillips, Chair of the DYRS Labor Committee:
I’m writing on behalf of the FOP Department of Youth Rehabilitation
Services (DYRS) Labor Committee with some very sad news, and a plea for
solidarity from the Lodge. As you may know, the FOP DYRS Labor Committee
(“Union”) represents about 260 Youth Development Representatives (YDRs)
at the DYRS facilities. These folks are youth correctional officers.
They are essential employees who have continued to report for duty
during this crisis. They don’t receive any extra pay for reporting under
these circumstances. (Unlike many private sector employers who still
ask their employees to report during the crisis, the District does not
offer any additional compensation.)
The Union has been advocating and begging
for better protections for these folks since the beginning of this
emergency. Basic protections such as masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, or
places to wash hands without requesting relief from duty have been
denied to the YDRs. This is true even as there are two confirmed
COVID-19 cases among the confined youth and at least 15 more kids on
quarantine within the facilities.
The first youth who tested
positive is presumed to have contracted the virus from a U.S. Marshal
who had previously tested positive. This Marshal is also presumed to
have transmitted the virus to people connected to the Department of
Corrections. After discovering the Marshal’s positive diagnosis, a
number of YDRs who had come into contact with that individual
were placed in quarantine because of the exposure. It is with heavy
hearts that we learned this evening that a member of our bargaining unit
who was ordered into quarantine after being in contact with the Marshal
contracted the virus and passed away from related complications. He was
in his mid-forties and otherwise healthy.
It is sadly the
case that this death could have been prevented. We have been attending
meetings as well as begging everyone at various levels of the executive
branch to please protect our members. We have filed grievances and done
our best to quell the fears of our members. But now one of our own has
died because of contracting the virus at work. We can no longer push
paper and attend meetings while our folks are dying from lack of
protection. We need to have PPEs for all members of the bargaining unit
(gloves, masks, respirators). We need adequate sanitizing stations and
products. We need temperature screening for everyone who enters the
facilities. We need access to the same testing offered to first
responders. We also need and deserve the same admin closure pay we would
get when we report for duty during a snow closing. We need and deserve
hazardous duty/environmental differential for exposing ourselves to this
risk on a daily basis.
We are asking for the Lodge to support
us in elevating these concerns to the public consciousness and to
leaders who will get us the protections we need—now—before anyone else
dies from a virus they contracted in the line of duty without
basic protections.
Andre Phillips
Chair
D.C. Dept. of Youth Rehabilitation Services Labor Committee