With local government unions possibly on the brink of settling this year’s pay dispute following an increased offer from the employers, it will be interesting to see what happens with the prison officers.
It’s going to be a bit galling for social workers, nurses and other public sector staff if Gordon Brown ends up caving in to an illegal walk-out by the POA and giving them a better pay rise.
It was the Tories that outlawed strike action by essential staff back in the 90s. Some people argued that it was an infringement of a workers human rights to prevent them from withdrawing their labour. At the time I had some sympathy with that view.
But the POA doesn’t do itself any favours when it comes to generating sympathy for its cause. A lot of people would agree that a starting salary of £17,350 to work in an environment where you face daily threats of violence is not a very good deal. But however justifiable their cause, the POA members walked out without any prior warning at all leaving prisoners – including vulnerable young offenders - locked down in their cells, denied access to their families, to phonecalls and to justice (all trips to court were cancelled). Some were not even sure if they would be getting food and water.
That’s really not on. The staff could still have made their point if they had stuck by the rules and given warning of their action so measures could be put in place to ensure people in custody didn’t suffer unnecessarily. We’re talking about some very vulnerable men and women that society has effectively failed. Ok some of them have done bad things, but their punishment is loss of liberty not the stripping away of what few rights they have.
I’ve heard prison officers say that what they do on the other side of the prison walls is social work by another name. They claim to have professionalised the service and moved on from the bad old days when prisoners were treated as the lowest of the low.
If that’s the case then they need to stop using the methods of the bad old days to resolve their disputes.