One-day strike of police staff

One-day strike of police staff

By a police staff worker

After an overwhelming majority voted in favour of taking strike action and ‘up to and including strike action’ in a consultative ballot for police staff on pay this summer, the employers’ side of the Police Staff Council refused to budge. An official ballot was then announced. This closed on 2nd December with staff again voting ‘Yes’ on both ballot paper votes.

Police staff members in Unite, Unison and GMB are due to walk out on a 24-hour strike from midnight to midnight on 22nd December and a ‘work to rule’ – refusal of overtime working and other ‘actions short of strike action’ will go ahead in January.

Staff in Constabularies have seen their pay decline by an average of 13% after pay freezes for two years and last year’s imposed 1%. This year, the union side of the Police Staff Council put in a 3% pay demand but the employers came back again with a ‘full and final offer’ of 1% that staff have now fully rejected.

With the statement that the 1% pay rises will be imposed until 2017 and the news that the employer is looking to attack terms and conditions from next year, police staff have said loudly and clearly: ‘Enough!’.

We have all read about the ‘green shoots’ of the economic recovery lauded by the Con-Dem government and demand that if this is the case, we should see some evidence of it.

The majority of police staff workers see this action as necessary and are fully behind the strike. However, as part of a wider campaign, police workers in Unite, Unison and GMB should now plan and coordinate action with other unions and workers in dispute. Probation officers within Unison and Napo, along with firefighters in the FBU, and NHS workers, who are all involved in some kind of action at present, should organise together and fight against privatisation, cuts to staff, terms and conditions, and this government’s ideological attack on public services.

There is now a growing mood among police staff against these attacks so there is a massive opportunity to organise. In my union branch, membership has started to rise and people are becoming more involved in a way I have never seen before within my time as a police staff worker. This momentum must be maintained, with bolder action and wider coordination.

18.12.14: strike suspended