RICHMOND, B.C. – Members of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) rallied at WorkSafeBC’s headquarters in Richmond on April 20, protesting against understaffing in the province’s correctional institutions and the increasing workplace violence in them. An April 24 news release from the National Union of Public and General Employees, the nationwide union affiliated with BCGEU, stated that the rally had been intended to send a message to reduce inmate-to-staff ratios to manageable levels. The current ratio is 72 to one, more than three-and-a-half times the ratio before 2001, the release claimed. “Our officers feel exposed and vulnerable. Assaults are happening almost daily,” Dean Purdy, BCGEU’s vice president of corrections and sheriff services, said in a media statement. “WorkSafeBC must address the dramatic increase in violence inside all nine of the province’s jails, or it is only going to get worse.” The union added that its executive members had met with WorkSafeBC senior officials in February, but no action had been taken to address the constant assaults on correctional officers.