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CMC begins issuing layoff notices

October 22, 2011

State officials sent 117 employees of the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County layoff notices on Friday as part of a plan to reduce prison overcrowding by transferring inmates to county jails.

As part of the plan, 26,000 California prison employees could lose their jobs.

On Friday, notices were sent to guards and employees who have less than 10 years on the job, said Paul Verke, a spokesman for the Corrections and Rehabilitation Department. However, it is unlikely all 26,000 employees will be fired.

“The 26,000 figure is casting a wide net,” Verke said. “They are the people who could be affected by this. People may have to transfer or go to a lower-paying classification or eventually leave.”

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling that the state’s prisons are unconstitutionally overcrowded, compromising inmate health care. The federal court gave the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation until roughly June 2013 to shed 34,000 inmates.

On Oct. 1, the state began to shift incarceration responsibility for non-violent and non-sexual offenders to their local county jails instead of state prisons.

Drug dealers, burglars and other felons sentenced in San Luis Obispo Superior Court are now wards of the county, under the realignment plan slated to reduce the number of inmates entering the overcrowded state prison system.


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This is no different than when teachers got layoff notices due to budget negotiations with the CTA. Same tactic, different union. It really is the only tool the state has to reduce staffing costs when revenues are down. The state can’t afford all these union jobs any more – they’re too expensive. There are just too many state employees and not enough tax revenue to pay them all, plus their benefits, pension plans and healthcare packages. The union leaders don’t want to reduce their comp packages, so they’re not offering any real savings to the state.


Prediction: Just like the teachers, the money will magically appear through some accounting gimmick and no one will be laid off. there may be a short-term reduction in contributions to 401(k) or some other trick, but nothing significant.


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@zap, I directed this to zap as he’s/she’s shared some links on this topic. My links are about the explosion of our prison population around the time when private prisons came into the story during saint Reagan’s admin.. The corruption of our politicians through big corps, in particular the Koch Bros.,,,, those are the same dudes that started and continue to fund the Tea Party. Those same guys own repub congressmen. Thanks to r0y’s link I learned that the congressman that I dislike the most, repub congressional leader Eric Cantor’s largest campaign contributors are the Koch Bros. as well as other a few other ALEC members. Those guys not only own your politicians but they also own some of our prisons. I know I know, Lois Capps largest campaign contributors are those thugs from the Nurses Union so I shouldn’t throw up Cantor and the John BirchKoch Bros..


If this stuff doesn’t help you all to understand why people join the Occupy movement then nothing will. Big corps (many not all) and politicians are screwing us over in almost every aspect of our lives.


@zap: http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289


*In the 70s there were approx 20,000 prisoners in Ca, there is now 170,000.


*We have 25% of the worlds prison population but we only 5% of the world population. We have 1/2 a million more prisoners in this country than China and yet they have 5 times the population than we do.


Here’s the Kicker ALEC is an org. started by the Koch bros and they have managed to get other fat cat pig corps to join them. ALECs main goal is to write up legislation. ALEC’s lobbyists go to their paid politicians ie Eric Cantor and they get them to pass bills and policies that ALEC has hand written such as ‘mandatory minimums’ and the infamous ‘three strikes legislation. Yes folks it was ALEC that wrote and paid to get those passed as well as other laws that throw people in prison and allow them to work for dirt. So now thanks to those legislations along with other policies and bills that ALEC’s paid for, our prisons are bursting at the seams.


The Koch bros have made a fortune in the prison business,,well I should say another fortune. They legally have prison slave labor to make goods that they turn around sell at top dollar. The prisoners make roughly 75 cents an hour. Hey, I’m a lib but I wouldn’t mind making prisoners work to help pay for their keep, if the prisoners were really bad guys like Manson, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But we have people like pot dealers making ALL of our military helmets, not some ALL and they’re selling them at top dollar to our military. But they don’t just make the prison slaves make helmets they also make other things but they do make a lot of military supplies and we know that the govt pays top dollar for these things. Well, who buys those supplies, the govt. and we all know who owns the govt..the Koch bros so now we know how the Koch bros get those govt. accounts (thanks Mr. Cantor and the rest of the paid off dudes).


Our prisons system is incredibly corrupt and it’s not because of the unions, as a matter of fact that’s one of things that ALEC managed to get out of the private prisons, the repubs got their wish there too. No unions in private prisons. They are squeezing the public prisons out so we can run Nazi style prisons.


The Koch bros are dangerous, they need to be locked in one of our un state owned prisons making license plates nest to Eric Cantor and the rest of slime. The Koch Bros have more money and power than most people know and after reading one of zaps links and finding about their family background they are some scary guys and they about to own this country if we don’t do something about it.


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Power of Nightmares

BBC’s Adam Curtis, overview of our predicament in three parts FREE from Google Video .

share and enjoy,


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here is a video link about prisons and profits


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Umm you might want to check the numbers you profess.


http://www.ihra.net/contents/1055


According to the link as of July 2011, the worlds prison population is 10.1 million. Now using your number of 170k in California, that works out to 1.7%.


World population 7 billion. Ca 2010 37,253,956 That is .5% of world


I would agree that we have to many offenders in the state of Ca. locked up for drug charges, that are busting the back of the state. I couldn’t BELIEVE that when we had a proposition on the ballot (I think a couple elections ago) about giving those convicted of drug usage a sentence of probation and being required to go into treatment, that it got voted down. I’m sure people thought the treatment would be expensive. Probably would have been but couldn’t be much more than the alternative people went with instead. Incarceration.


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I don’t believe that you’re reading my post correctly.


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O.k. fair enough. I saw the 170k and the 5% mentioned in your article, what did I get wrong?


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The entire country has 5% of the world population.


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Oh I see what you are saying. You switched thoughts and didn’t mention. Your prior sentence you where talking about California. Didn’t know you where then switched over to talking about the U.S.


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I don’t always explain myself very well, I can see the misunderstanding. I can see how that looks like I meant Ca..


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We are going to see more nurses beat up and killed, we are going to see more prison violence and we are going to see prisoners coming out worse than when they went in.


USA= highest amount of non violent offenders in prison in the entire world.


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Here’s the problem with your arguement of more violence. They are cutting down on inmates in the Ca. system and sending them to county. Hence statistically it shoud stay the same. Now county may be another issue but the article here is talking about state. We don’t need a bunch of guards standing around with less inmates.


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-26K prison employees

-34K inmates


The prisons are already understaffed even with the potential loss of 34K inmates it seems un-proportioned to me.


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They proportion like they do cops. In the city of Paso it is 1cop to 1000 people. Now before you jump all over that statement I know you need more in Prisons but you don’t need one to one.


Lets say that out of your numbers 13K are guards (other could be support staff). Out of that split too two 12 hour shifts 6,500 ea. Now using YOUR numbers that would roughly be 1 guard to 5 inmates. So what more do you think we need? One to one?


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You got it all wrong Typo. The prisons are way over-populated because of the screwed up laws of this country and state.


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That’s right, I never said that the laws weren’t screwed up, read my post at the top regarding prison corruption, I mention a few of the screwed up laws ie Three Strikes’. But that’s not the prison staffs fault, should they have to get beat up or die because of the screwed up laws? We need a complete overhaul of the prison system including the laws that throw pot dealers and other non violent offenders in our prisons and corporate prisons which cost us an arm and a leg and make money for the big corps. The laws are designed to put more people in prison. They can’t build the prisons fast enough to throw these people in.


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Under the new guidelines, the non-violents will serve their time in County jails. Parkinson has a great attidtude toward the jail population. My bet is the prisoners will come out better qualified to lead crime free lives. Let’s hope so.


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Fingers crossed.


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Who else wants more prisons?? UNIONS. More prisoners more union jobs. More union jobs more dues. Oh and who builds those prisons? Union workers. It’s a win win for them.


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To change what Jack Nickalson said slightly, “you union workers can’t handle the truth.”


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No, the Republicans want more prisons. Your boys are paid off by the Koch Bros. Repubs need to pander to the Koch bros by filling up their private prisons. The unions have nothing to do with pushing for more prisons, that’s 100% the repubs and they’re doing it by enacting stupid laws ie ‘three strikes’.


Stricter laws to put non violent offenders in prison=repubs

paying 25-75 cents an hour to profit from slave labor=repubs


Check the facts. Although from reading your posts you seem to get numbers a bit mixed up check it out. It is completely your repub politicans (bought and paid for) that are pushing for more prisoners and more prisons. Look at who owns the prisons, it isnt’ the unions. Private prisons don’t have union employees. Open the links. Fact, the prison mess is due to republican corruption.


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My numbers are mixed up? I have only replied to YOUR posted numbers. Go back and read. Nice spin on your part though. You make Air America proud.


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I am not sure I completely understand: The feds are mandating that we put more people in prison by demanding we enforce their dumb pot laws. At the same time, the feds are demanding we release prisoners ???


If Moonbeam has half a pair, he will find a way to make all marijuana-related prisoners and the feds responsibility to care/house them


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Waiting to hear the union outcry over this.


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Good idea. Lets hope they cry out for the prison employees, that’s what unions are for. They are the voice for prison employees, I know that if I worked in a prison I’d be worried for my safety. So although they seem to be losing a lot of their power, lets hope that the unions can get involved to help out and prevent more violent attacks on prison staff.


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