New contract offer would create a committee to determine whether certain provisions of a law that regulates solitary confinement could be changed.

New York corrections officials are offering striking prison guards a deal to return to work. The commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced the offer during a Thursday Zoom call.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration is bypassing the correction officers union, offering illegally striking guards at over 30 New York prisons another deal if they return to work Friday. The state proposed a new deal — without the union’s sign-off — in a desparate attempt to get the prisons fully staffed after the guards walked off the job on Feb.

State Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello revealed Thursday that he and his team had been negotiating directly with striking officers and sergeants at many of the state’s 42 prisons, where thousands of workers walked off the job last month without union approval.