Union protests prison conditions

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003 | 10:57 a.m.

Nevada's prisons are dangerously understaffed and Department of Corrections administrators are trying to break the employees' union for spotlighting the problem, hundreds of protesting union members and their supporters said Monday.

Martin Nustad, a corrections officer at High Desert State Prison, said there aren't enough staff members to keep the prison safe and secure and at times some of the guard towers aren't manned.

"This place is a time bomb waiting to happen," Nustad said of the high-medium security prison.

Glen Whorton, assistant director of the state Department of Corrections, said that's not true.

"Our maximum security facility (at Ely) is efficiently built so that we do not require the numbers of corrections officers that were once needed," he said.

Whorton said the "performance of staff has been excellent. Our prisons are not out of control -- they are controlled." He said when the system is short staffed, "sections are closed down to minimize risks. And we pay overtime when it is necessary."

The protesting guards say that is not enough and that prison officials are not telling the whole story.

"I hope (the protests) would bring to light to the public the public safety concerns, how skimpy security is here," the anonymous officer said. "We're out here to stop it from getting any worse.

Another corrections officer who would not give his name said training has been reduced from classes to reading from a textbook, and the inmate-to-officer ratio is "just totally off the board."

A 2002 report by the American Correctional Association, however, indicated that Nevada has one of the highest inmate-to-corrections officer ratios of the 40 states that responded to the survey. Nevada's ratio was 7.2 prisoners per guard.

The national average was 5.7 inmates per corrections officer or 5.1 not counting New Mexico, according to the survey. That average was probably skewed, however, by the report lacking 10 states including California and Massachusetts.

Whorton cautioned, however, that such national and state-to-state comparisons "are so difficult to get your arms around because every state is different."

And Samuel Covelli, president of the State of Nevada Employees Association and an employee at High Desert, said that Sunday night there were only eight officers available to respond to emergencies in the 1,800-inmate prison. That's one guard for every 225 prisoners.

That guard count did not include officers stationed in what he called fixed positions, such as towers and entrances. Covelli also said he didn't know exactly how many guards the prison should have, but he said it should be higher than it is now. "All the prisons are short-staffed," he said.

About 130 people protested along the road leading to the High Desert and Southern Desert prisons near Indian Springs, about 30 miles from Las Vegas, on Monday afternoon. Many carried signs that read "Union Rights, Civil Rights -- One and the Same" and participated in chants such as, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, union busters got to go."

Covelli said about 200 people participated in a similar demonstration in Carson City.

The State of Nevada Employees Association has about 3,700 members among all the state agencies, Covelli said.

He said he hoped the protests would make the public aware of what he says is an anti-union effort at the prisons, which has left 11 union members on paid administrative leave and prompted the union to sue the department.

The union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Las Vegas on Dec. 26. The lawsuit asks the court to force department administrators to "restore our rights to associate and recruit," said Covelli, who has been on administrative leave since Dec. 30.

Covelli was put on paid leave after he was accused of "conducting the property room in a criminal matter," he said. Covelli, who has worked for the department for 17 years, said department policy prevents him from further explaining the charges. But, he said, the charges are the result of his union activity, not any wrongdoing.

Putting corrections officers on paid leave is part of High Desert Warden James Schomig's strategy to scare employees away from the union and from speaking out on the department, Covelli alleged. "They are trying to bust our union," he said.

Whorton said Friday he would not comment on the demonstration because of the pending litigation. State officials have said previously that no employees' rights have been violated and said that no one is being targeted because they belong to a union.

Nevertheless, many who participated in the protest in Las Vegas said they were afraid they or their relatives would be fired if they spoke to the media.

"They'd come right after me," said one corrections officer who refused to give his name.

Covelli said the unions problems are not limited to High Desert, but that is the facility where anti-union efforts seem to be focused.

He said he doesn't think Gov. Kenny Guinn, who was endorsed by the union in the last election, knows the extent of the problem.