It’s been 25 years since police staff last took industrial action but it looks increasingly likely that a strike ballot will pave the way for a new walkout before Christmas. The dispute is over a one per cent pay offer which the unions have dismissed as miserly following a two-year pay freeze. It has inevitably put them on a collision course with police employers who see this as a take it or leave it offer and have refused to re-open negotiations. It’s a decision that many police staff members are agonising over such as Brian (not his real name), a worker with 17 years’ service who holds a sergeant-equivalent supervisory position. He told Police Oracle “We do not want to strike. We do not want to take industrial action. What option do we have though when the powers that be do not want to undertake meaningful negotiations and only care about the cost of things, while neglecting the value of them?” He added: “From my perspective the dispute is about one of fairness in that we feel that we are being taken advantage of. It is also not a simple case of a pay dispute with our employer as we have been adversely affected by the demands of the government in terms of the implementation of the Winsor Report, their three-year pay freeze and a derisory one per cent pay award at the end of it. This is against a backdrop of a continued increase in pension contributions and major increases in the cost of living, transportation in particular and police staff bearing all of the cuts in staffing through redundancy. “As a result of all this, my basic take home pay is 7.5% less today than it was three years ago.” Unions argue that taking everything else into account, the value of staff salaries is around 13% less than in 2010. Government pay restraint Unison, one of the unions fighting the corner for police staff say the root cause is the government’s public sector pay restraint where pay awards have been limited to one per cent, triggering industrial action disputes in other sectors such as local government and the health service. “Not unsurprisingly we were offered one per cent for police staff as well,” said Unison’s Police Lead Ben Priestley, “but that is a matter for police employers. They are not under direct treasury control like a civil service employer. Police employers, chief constables and crime commissioners do have latitude to make a pay offer that is outside the government’s public sector pay policy.” According to Mr Priestley, prior to a meeting with the employers in September, 84% of Unison members declared in a consultative ballot their willingness to take industrial action to improve the offer. “We had a very strong mandate at that stage to go back to the employers at the Police Staff Council and ask that they re-open the talks but the employers could not be persuaded to do this. As a result the unions announced their intentions to move to an industrial action ballot.” Police staff endured a pay freeze for two years in 2011 and 2012. Those at the bottom of the pay scale earning under £21,000 a year received an unconsolidated £250 award in 2011 and a consolidated award of the same amount in 2012. “So the position essentially was that the vast majority of police staff got nothing in those years,” Mr Priestly said. He added: “What that feeds through to is that the value of police staff salaries now is about 13% less than it was in 2010. So the purchasing power of their salaries has dropped by 13%. If the one per cent pay awards continue, by 2018 inflation will have risen by another 16.2% and that means by that stage if we don’t push back on pay, police staff salaries will be worth 30% less than in 2010. This trend cannot go on for ever. It is not tenable. The government say pay restraint will continue until at least the end of 2017 so the future looks pretty grim.” Grim future Brian says he has to work additional hours and endure cancelled rest days at short notice. “Most of the extended duties I work are unplanned and are often up to eight hours over my rostered finish time and well into the night. As a result this means having to purchase additional meals. The employer has no provision for me to claim a penny back for these unforeseen expenses as they have scrapped them all. How can I possibly foresee that I may be required to take up to three meals with me to work each day? In the same circumstances my police officer colleagues are busy retaining their receipts and submitting expenses claims whilst I just have to ‘lump-it’.” Nearly 20,000 police staff have been laid off since 2010 and according to Mr Priestley, the messages their members have been given is that they have to be cautious about pay. He explained: “If you ask for too much, you will be made redundant. The fact is not a single one of those 20,000 police staff jobs were saved on account of our members enduring two years of pay freeze and a one per cent pay freeze last year. So any suggestion that holding back on pay has saved jobs is clearly a nonsense. Any suggestion that holding back on pay has saved jobs is clearly a nonsense “Our members have seen their colleagues walking out the door and their workload piling up as a result and it is very clear that police staff have paid the price for the cuts that this government has placed on the police service. People are fed up with that and are saying enough is enough.” David Algie of the Police Staff Council Employers responded by saying they acknowledge that police staff have had a difficult time over the past three years in terms of pay and redundancies. He said: “We have to work within the confines of government pay policy and what has been offered to police officers – which was one per cent for this year. We are unable to meet the trade union side’s claim as the one per cent is within the limits of affordability for the service. There is no sign of the employers changing their position and saying they want to re-open negotiations.”
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 23:44:06 +0000
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