Union condemns Labour’s refusal to follow Scottish Government and lift the ban on prison officer’s right to strike

 

Labour Hub Editors

SEPT 18, 2024

The union representing over 4,000 prison officers in Scotland has hit out at the British Government following confirmation that they are refusing to reinstate the right to strike for prison officers in England and Wales.

Across the country Prison Officers are struggling to cope with rising numbers of prisoners in overcrowded jails. This is having a major impact on staff morale, health and well-being, resulting in rising sickness absence rates. But Prison Officers’ Association members are restricted in the actions they can take to force the government and Prison Service to address the crisis. 

Earlier this month, the POA wrote to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging him to repeal legislation passed in 1994 that prevents most of its members in England and Wales from taking industrial action and to follow the lead of the Scottish Government which reinstated the right to strike in 2015. 

Phil Fairlie, Deputy General Secretary of the POA said: “The right to withdraw one’s labour is a fundamental human right that should apply to all workers. The Scottish Government recognised this in 2015 and changed the law to reinstate a prison officers’ right to strike. This was the right thing to do.

“POA members welcomed this move and have acted in a very responsible way since. This can be seen from the fact that there has not been a single day lost to strike action since.  

“The Labour Government should recognise this and end this discriminatory ban on POA members. They cannot claim to be introducing ‘a new deal for working people’ if a large group of people working in a highly pressured public service are excluded.”

Pressure is mounting on the new Labour government to reinstate the right to strike. The issue was raised at a fringe meeting at last May’s POA annual conference by General Secretary Steve Gillan. He pledged to tell the then Shadow Prisons Minister that “we want our right to strike back.”

Currently POA members can face prosecution for taking industrial action. Steve Gillan pointed out: “It won’t cost them a single penny to restore our trade union rights.”

Last week’s annual Trades Union Congress conference in Brighton, passed a resolution calling for the repeal of legislation that prohibits industrial action by prison staff.

Mark Fairhurst, National Chairman of the (POA, expressed frustration with how political parties’ have handled of the issue. He stated that Labour had previously supported repealing the legislation while in Opposition, but failed to include this commitment in their recent workers’ rights reform package.

Ministers currently reject calls to restore the right to strike to officers in England and Wales, despite union warnings that the decision would be seen as a betrayal. The POA wrote to Keir Starmer earlier this month, urging him to address a “demoralising” crisis by repealing the 1994 legislation.

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak told the Financial Times that other emergency workers have the right to strike, as do prison officers in Scotland, so officers in England and Wales should be allowed “to exercise the same fundamental rights as everybody else”.

Image: Reading Prison. Source: : The prison, Reading – geograph.org.uk – 386266.jpg. Author: Andrew Smith, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.