Judge Orders Prison Officers Back Inside
The Courts say that Prison Officers can’t strike:
The surprise walkout, intended to be for at least 24 hours, by members of the Prison Officers’ Association in England and Wales began at 0700 BST.
The action came after it pulled out of a no-strike agreement with government.
Officers outside prisons have indicated that they would continue striking until Thursday morning despite the order. (BBC)
As much as a sympathise with the prison officers, when you do a job like that then you can’t really go on strike. It just really isn’t right for them to do so. I appreciate the problems they are suffering, but as an essential part of the modern justice system, they can’t just go on strike like that.
Certainly the manner in which it has been done has been most disruptive, and potentially dangerous, since “[m]any officers - including union officials - arrived for work unaware of the [strike] plans.”If notice of the strike had been given, then at the very least some civilian cover could have been brought in to avoid at least situations such as at Wakefield prison, where “the 745 inmates - including Soham killer Ian Huntley - [are] being guarded by no more than 20 senior managers.”
The strike has been declared illegal, with
Under that accord, the Government agreed to relax the legal bar – first introduced by the Conservatives in 1993 – on prison officers taking industrial action. The union decided to walk away from that agreement in May this year but its 12-month notice period has yet to expire. (The Times)
The prison officers should go back to work. They are opening themselves up to a severe undermining of their position of authority within prisons by defying the courts, exampled by inmates at Cardiff prison taunting a picket line in the car park with shouts of “You’re breaking the law”.
They should get a better settlement from the government than they are offered, especially considering that assaults on prison staff have risen to eight per day. After all, considering that they can afford to basically throw £3bn away, they should be able to factor in a pay rise for prison staff.
Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph
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100% agree there.
Thing is, they are not conscripted and - like all workers in a free society - they have the right to withhold their labour.
The main issue here seems to be centered around a “no strike” clause in their contract.
Such a clause could quite easily be argued not to pass the reasonable man test and so render the contract itself void, but of course it would have to go to court to decide this.
I think it is also overly simplistic to say that if they don’t like a job they should leave. Many have financial dependancies to consider (family, rent etc) and so will find it an ominous prospect to leave or retrain.
Since their experience to date basically means the only job they are qualified for is that of a prison officer, this presents them with something of a Hobson’s choice.
The decision to strike may have been rash, but I suspect that it was a decision not reached lightly and that there is much more going on here than would first appear.
They have the right to withhold their labour by quitting their job - they don’t have the right to strike en masse. That is in their contract, and must be supported by the courts, considering that the judge ordered them back to work.
I have sympathy for their reasons, but that still doesn’t give them the right to strike.
Just because the judge ordered them back does not necessarily mean that he looked at the contract.
The government applied for an injunction which - dependent on exactly what the injunction was on - may not have anything to do with the contract.
Is it the fact that they went on strike that you have an issue with, or that they were prison officers who went on strike?
As I said before, withdrawing labour by moving jobs is fine in theory, and ertainly it is good if you’re in a field where there is a lot of competition (IT for example).
However in the prison service this amounts to choosing which branch of a company to work in, since the employer is always the government or a subcontractor thereof.