Vote ‘yes’ to fight for decent pay and workloads

Adam Harmsworth

Napo national vice-chair, personal capacity

From 19 October until noon on 13 November, probation service workers in Napo will be balloted for industrial action over both pay and workloads.

The recent chaos around the early release of thousands of prisoners has put the spotlight on problems in probation that have existed for years. Probation workers are already severely overworked, and many were dreading the immense extra work they would be forced to shoulder with the early release.

Pay has fallen in real terms over many years, leaving some staff working two jobs even while being overworked. To add to the insultingly low pay, a year ago probation bosses didn’t even bother to make a pay offer for an entire year!

On top of that, there is a horrendous culture of bullying and discrimination in the prison service (HMPPS).

Napo members in probation have had enough of being overworked and underpaid.

In June, Napo’s National Executive Committee (NEC) passed a motion of no confidence in HMPPS, demanding “immediate and substantive change”.

When neither HMPPS nor the government reacted, 90.76% of members voted for industrial action in an online indicative ballot. From there, the NEC unanimously voted to continue the campaign, including a formal ballot for industrial action.

Napo has 6,000 members. It has had two online all-member meetings since announcing the formal ballot, with 490 members attending the first and 300 at the second.

Everything indicates this is a union whose members are prepared to fight back, to improve pay and workloads, and to effectively rescue probation from a crisis of years of underfunding.

Napo members in probation should vote ‘yes’ to strike, and make clear this union will not back down until funding is restored to probation and the culture of overworking is torn down.

Pressure on Burnham

If the Labour government were truly on our side, it would have begun restoring pay to the public sector and investing in public services like probation. But there is no word of this from new prime minister Andy Burnham. Instead, at the time of writing, even the threat of strike action hasn’t budged the government to intervene to ensure any decent offer on pay and workloads could be put to the union.

At last year’s annual general meeting (AGM), 37% of attendees voted for a motion for Napo to begin discussions with sister unions on building a new political voice for the working class. Since then, Keir Starmer was booted out, massively unpopular due to his continuation of Tory austerity.

While no similar motion has been taken to this year’s AGM, many members will feel let down by a Burnham government promising to be different, but in practice acting just the same.

Napo AGM

All Napo members are encouraged to attend the AGM at Newcastle’s Civic Hall from 15 to 17 October, and join the discussion on how we can build the industrial and political fightback together to win a probation service that works for its staff, service users, and the community.

That must include Napo pressing the TUC to call the national demo against Labour austerity agreed at TUC Congress in September.