Opinion ID: 2807875
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Work Crews

Text: Work crew officers escort groups of ten prisoners to offsite work locations and supervise their workdays. Searches are again part and parcel of the job—comprising 70% of dayto-day responsibilities. Strip searches are required each time an inmate leaves and reenters the prison grounds. Before the 2009 staffing policy, female officers had to be “pulled from TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 117 V. WASH. DEP’T OF CORR. 29 somewhere else in the facility” to conduct these searches, which can “creat[e] [] a staff shortage in another area of the facility” and pose “a potential security risk,” according to the Human Rights Commission. During the workday, officers also must accompany female inmates as they use the restroom. The Department concluded that, because of these job responsibilities, it needed female officers alongside work crews. The Department therefore designated six positions as female-only. Nonetheless, with respect to work crews, the Union argues that the Department should merely station female guards at prison entry and exit points. If the need for a search arises “while work is in progress, this would constitute an ‘emergent’ search which is not prohibited for a male officer as a matter of law, policy or contract.” The Union produced no evidence or legal support for its emergency-search proposal. Even if the Department could disingenuously label every work-site search as an emergency, the state’s interest is broader than merely avoiding illegal searches. Having male officers conduct pat searches under any non-emergency circumstances is undesirable and harmful to prisoner privacy and security. Staging female officers at entry and exit points also ignores the state’s interest in preserving security during work assignments. The record showed that at least two inmates escaped from public bathrooms while on work crews, when they were not watched by male guards and no female guards were on hand. The Union does not explain, much less provide evidence for, how its alternative proposal would address concerns about on-the-job observation. 30 TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 117 V. WASH. DEP’T OF CORR.