Delco jail guards were fired without cause after county officials made a ‘hit list’ of union members, suit says

Fifteen former guards at the Delaware County prison have filed a federal lawsuit, saying they were fired without cause amid efforts to undermine their union when the county resumed control of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in 2022.

The group said county officials, including the jail’s warden, targeted members of the Delaware County Prison Employees Independent Union.

The lawsuit names Jail Oversight Board Chair Kevin Madden, Warden Laura K. Williams, and Cheyenne Marquette, the jail’s human resources manager.

Upon taking office, Williams “unilaterally repudiated” the union’s collective bargaining agreement with The GEO Group, the private prison firm that previously ran the facility, and ignored the state’s status-quo doctrine that maintains previous contract guidelines during negotiations, the lawsuit said.

She told her subordinates to create a “hit list” of people to be fired, according to the suit, singling out union members, including its president and vice president, and prevented the county from deducting union dues from members’ paychecks.

A county spokesperson declined to comment Monday, citing the pending litigation.

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All 15 plaintiffs said their rights were violated when they were fired “without notice, hearing, and/or opportunity to be heard,” according to the lawsuit. They were in “good standing,” the suit said, with no disciplinary actions that would have warranted losing their jobs.

The group demanded a jury trial, seeking unspecified damages for lost wages, emotional distress and physical pain.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Philadelphia, said the officials had blocked union leadership from meeting with its members at the jail, and have continued to terminate employees without due process, as recently as the end of last year.

Frank Kwaning, the union president, and Ashley Gwaku, the vice president, filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the state’s Labor Relations Board last year, saying they were unfairly targeted because of their work with the union.

A judge ruled against them, saying the county was justified in its decision not to retain them.

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For decades, Delaware County contracted management and operation of the 1,883-inmate George W. Hill facility to The GEO Group, which helped fund its construction in the ‘90s. Efforts to return the jail to public control began about 2018, amid protests from citizens and advocates over suicides and other deaths at the jail, as well as widespread reports of poor conditions.

The county formed its Jail Oversight Board in 2019, chaired by Madden, a county council member. Three years later, the county began overseeing the facility’s operation after terminating its contract with GEO.

The union has long complained of poor morale among corrections officers and difficulties ratifying a contract with the county.

The guard union signed its first temporary work agreement with the county in September, which came with an across-the-board raise of $3 an hour. For correctional officers, that meant an hourly rate of $24, up from $21, with an additional 1.5% wage increase for employees with more than 20 years on the job.

That agreement lapsed Dec. 31, and the union has been working without a contract since as negotiations continue.