The union that represents about 10,000 guards in Pennsylvania’s state prisons told Governor Tom Wolf that it plans legal action to stop his effort to force them to get COVID-19 vaccines over the next month. The president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association… John Eckenrode… sent a letter to the Democratic governor two days after Wolf ordered the guards and some other state workers to get fully vaccinated by September 7 or face weekly testing, calling it latest episode of what has been a woefully inconsistent vaccination/testing/masking policy by this administration in our state prisons. Eckenrode told Wolf that the plan for testing won’t make people safer because it does not extend to inmates’ family members, contractors, vendors and volunteers. As for masking, he pointed out that union members are required to wear them, but inmates are not.
