Shawnee CC employees picket as radio outage enters third week

Members of AFSCME Local 3605 at Shawnee Correctional Center took to the picket line on July 10 to demand fixes to safety conditions that have made a hard job even more dangerous.

The facility has been under lockdown for more than two weeks because staff radios aren’t working—a crisis layered on top of the chronic understaffing that already strains the prison.

Local 3605 President Jon Dye said the radio failure was the immediate trigger for the picket, but it’s part of a longer pattern of equipment breakdowns, staffing shortages and safety risks that have become all too common throughout the Department of Corrections. 

He said members turned out to make clear that their safety on the job has to be treated as a priority.

“[The department] knows that the old, antiquated, outdated equipment that we use on a daily basis was eventually going to be a problem,” Dye told WPSD news. “It shouldn’t be a shock to anybody that we’re in this position.”

The radio outage means staff can’t reliably communicate across long distances or between buildings, making it far harder to respond quickly to emergencies, assaults, or medical situations.

The stakes go beyond staff safety alone—the people in IDOC’s custody are affected too. Without working equipment, the activities and movements of incarcerated individuals are severely restricted because the facility is forced to stay locked down.

“For years, union members have raised serious concerns about aging radios to management,” said Council 31 Staff Representative Jeremy Noelle. “After all that time, it’s beyond belief that management decided to fix the system only after it crashed.”