BITTER disappointment, disgust and "another knife in the side of British policing" are how furious frontline officers have described the Home Secretary's decision to effectively only give them a 1.9 per cent pay rise this year!
After accepting the police arbitration tribunal's 2.5 per cent pay award Jacqui Smith will NOT back date it to 1 September as was recommended. Instead police officer pay packets will only see the increase from 1 December.
In a letter to The Chancellor of The Exchequer, Mr Alistair Darling, Ms Smith said the effect 'will produce a headline annual settlement of 1.9 per cent' which effectively shaves 0.6 per cent off the award. The Home Secretary was due to formally announce her decision yesterday on 6th December.
In my opinion this shows the government's contempt towards police officers. I am gob smacked but in many ways not surprised at this news. I just hope that there are calls being made to access the "right to strike" The Labour government since coming into power have bound the police force, sorry, service, in red tape, bound our hands to issue out punishment and cut further and further back in spending so much so, you barely see a police officer on the streets anymore and this is now the cherry on a very large proverbial cake!
After the alerts on 9/11, the attacks on 7/7, the Glasgow airport attacks, the attempted attacks on 21/7 and the failed car bombings. It adds insult to injury when officers put the job first before their families to protect the public putting in hundreds of hours without question only to have the government they are protecting insult them with this embarrassment of a pay rise.
The hole in the bottom of the bucket is getting bigger. In the years I have been in the force I have seen many good officers leave as they cannot stand the working conditions any longer. There will be a time when the bucket being filled with recruits will gradually be reduced to a drip, eventually stopping. Let's face it, would anyone want to work in these conditions with a government who doesn't give a toss?!!
Any other group of workers would be thinking about taking industrial action. If this was the London Underground you wouldn't have seen a tube train for the last 6 months! What angers me more is that the government know this and that's why we have to just carry on regardless to the best of our ability. Because if we don't, someone ultimately suffers and the government knows this!
I am very interested in how the Federation will want to pursue this! Hopefully they will insist on direct action!
I for one will be withdrawing my goodwill and will be working to rule.
Friday 7 December 2007
Kicked In The Teeth!
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7 comments:
I'm sure that you meant to write: The Chancellor of The Exchequer, Mr Alistair etc. and not 'Chancellor Alistair etc.'
I did indeed! Many thanks for pointing that out! :o)
Kind regards
RP
See this maybe she will re-think
Of course Police (and the armed forces too) should have the right to strike, the withdrawal of labour is a basic human right. But a part of me does think "Ha, now you know what it feels like".
Despite Jan Berry's claims that the police pay process is a special case, it's not really. Because health unions voluntarily have rules that prevent themselves from any action that harms patients the decisions of our Pay Review Body are also meant to be binding.
The result this year, the PRB decided on 2.5%, the Government decided to stage it, 1.5% from April 1st, 1.0% from November 1st, working out at 1.9% for 2007/08. That's exactly the same as the Police have got this year. The difference being that governments routinely fiddle with health service pay whenever finances are tight and in the end health service workers decided to accept a very slightly improved offer rather than strike. By my reckoning that's happened 6 times in the last 20 years to the health service.
But I'm afraid this is one time when your predecessors actions have caught up with you. The politics of many Labour politicians of my generation were defined by the miners strike. In that conflict, the police gleefully attacked people who did have the right to strike. The Police Federation actually said at the time that police officers might refuse to serve under a future Labour Government.
I personally knew a policeman in 1984 who boasted of beating a picketing miner across his skull, I was 12 then and have never trusted any policeman since. Across the North and in Wales many mining communities were terrorised by the police.
So exactly why should you guys get any sympathy?
DM Andy, of course it's easy to tar all police officers with the same brush, considering 23 years have passed since then and so have many officers and their attitudes!
It's very easy not to trust a police officer because everyone either knows a person who's had a bad time or themselves or they've called them out only to find that there are in fact other crimes being committed at the same time and despite all the other magic tricks we can do, pulling officers out of a hat isn't one of them!
The health service should be injected with far more money and the staff do an excellent job,
well some of them do but then again, I don't go into the horror stories of some of the bad experiences of the attitudes of some of the doctors I have had to routinely deal with including last night and the bad experiences I've had to endure whilst also being a patient or with a patient in the past several years.
That would be just too damn easy!
I think the events of 7/7 proved just how valuable the emergency services are and the heroic actions of many persons on that day show that it's forward we look to, not the past!
I'm not looking for sympathy with regards to the pay
....just a level playing field!
Plod, on an intellectual level I understand that not all police officers are the same, but that still doesn't help me trust a profession who in my view took sides against a lawful section of this country. I was assualted 4 years ago and it didn't cross my mind to involve the police in any way.
My point is that I don't think I'm alone in the Labour movement in having an deep-seated suspicion of the police and that's not helped by the Police Federation treating yourselves as a special case.
No-one deserved a real terms pay cut this year. But the Police Federation haven't spoken in support of any other public sector worker this year (or any other year as far as I can remember). If the Police want the support of anyone else outside the force, you're going to need to support us too.
DM Andy...
The first thing I noticed about your messages was the anger. You seem to be using any bad experience (and not just your own) as an excuse to point the finger and blame every officer for the short comings of a few.
I'd like to know what on earth has something that happened donkeys years ago got to do with todays policing and the pay awarded to current serving officers?
On an intellectual level, half the health service haven't a brain cell between them which gives me a wonderful smug feeling that I shall go far within the NHS. However should I come across someone such as yourself after an assault the first question I would ask is "what did you say to wind them up?". I presume you have something to do with the NHS, or is it just an example?
The NHS can refuse to treat someone who is violent, can have them removed from NHS property blah blah f*cking blah but what would happen if the police turned round and said "hell no I aren't arresting him, he's a bloody nut job!"? So there is your support and the reason the police are in fact a 'special case'...please feel free to offer your support now.
Oh and while I'm on the subject of support I'm curious to ask why you think the POLICE federation should speak out for another part of the public sector?
As RP said, many have heard of or had first hand experience of bad officers including myself but for everytime that ass of mine laid a hand on me there were a dozen other officers right there helping me escape because I didn't have the balls to walk out myself so if a pay rise means that my blood will boil at my ex getting more just so those who helped me can get what they deserve then yes, I can live with that!!
Why can't you?!
I think rather than having one-dimensional views we should all thank our lucky stars that those officers are there or the likes of you and real victims would be right up sh*t creek without a paddle.
Merry Christmas
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