Alan Guest, Branch Chair of the POA at Send Prison, Woking, took the morning off work to support the pickets on 30 June. He sent a message of support, extracts are below:
“Prison Service staff are mainly made up of uniformed prison officers, however recently the POA learnt that the Ministry of Justice was ignoring a recommendation in the Hutton report that uniformed staff should retire no later than 60. This includes police, firefighters, military and other uniformed roles. But clearly those of us who look after, and keep society safe from the most dangerous people are not considered under this recommendation…
“My latest pension statement says that after 38 year’s service I will get a £9,000 annual pension, hardly the gold plated gravy train portrayed by the government and Tory press, which has no doubt whipped up a generation of Daily Mail readers against us. My contract clearly states a retirement age of 60. How this government can say they will just legislate to change that is abysmal. If we breach our employment contracts the consequences are harsh. It’s about time they realise that those contracts go both ways.
“Public sector workers must unite to defend our pensions and terms and conditions, local government workers and civil servants do not deserve to pay the price for the mistakes of rich bankers.”
