Reinstate Our Hazard Pay! We Are Earning It!

“Daily we are asked to do more with less. Daily we are asked to risk our own life, safety, and mental health to supervise a population that does not want us here. Add COVID, and the task is now doubled if not tripled in demand for every officer here. Yet there are now fewer of us staffing the same facilities than before.”

This is just one of the hundreds of powerful responses VSEA Corrections Officers (COs) submitted to their union when asked to provide an honest account of what it’s been like working in a Vermont prison during the pandemic and also how they feel about the Scott Administration ending their “hazard pay.”

On November 2, VSEA’s Corrections Unit launched a campaign to get hazard pay reinstated, using COs’ firsthand written accounts to help them argue that the additional pay for COs and other essential workers should never have ended.

The large number of COs who responded to VSEA’s request means VSEA will be able to send a new and different packet of testimonials to Governor Scott (Or to whoever is elected Vermont’s next Governor) every week for the next five weeks. On average, VSEA estimates that the Governor will be reading ten, powerful testimonials every day!

VSEA invites members and retirees to help VSEA’s COs get their hazard pay reinstated by sharing these worker stories with your colleagues, family, friends, and neighbors. You can also call the Governor’s Office and lobby our local lawmakers to step up.

​Read VSEA Corrections Unit Chair Steffen Flibotte’s letter to the Governor,​ requesting hazard pay.

VSEA is pleased to share these excerpts from the first batch of CO testimonials that were sent Friday, October 30 to the Governor.

Members are urged to check VSEA.org weekly to view the latest batch of VSEA Corrections Unit members’ testimonials being sent to the Governor and to receive campaign updates. Thanks!