ALBANY — More than 2,000 state correction officers who were fired after being accused of declining to return to work at the end of an illegal strike included dozens of employees who were injured, sick, on family medical leave and, in at least one case, pregnant.
Many of those officers are pursuing grievances seeking reinstatement to their positions — as well as the restoration of their health insurance coverage — in a process that involves both the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, the union representing about 13,000 correction officers.
Jerri Cottrell, a mother of two young girls who had been a correction officer at Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, left work in February due to a hip injury that she said required her to provide the department with a doctor’s note within 30 days. But before that clock ran out, Cottrell said, she was called back to work and fired on March 11 — two weeks before she is scheduled to give birth to a son…