>Police officers in Scotland are considering what industrial action they could take after rejecting a flat £565 annual pay increase as “derisory”.
I wonder what action they could take, given that police officers effectively have no power to take any kind of industrial action:
>Police officers can be ordered to work at “any time, at any place, with any notice and for any duration”, he said, describing the restrictions on officers as a “singularly unique in the public sector”.
Police can make it extremely difficult to be ordered to work overtime:
>”So whilst police officers can be ordered to undertake overtime, they can’t be ordered to undertake overtime if no one can get hold of them,” Mr Steele added
But I think any kind of industrial action from the police would probably have to involve breaking the law in some way. The law criminalises asking officers to withdraw their services in any way, which makes it impossible to legally organise industrial action.
Here we go again 🙄
Like many emergency services workers. All police need to do is follow their regulations which enshrine their rights which are already routinely ignored.
Turning up at work an hour early for managers or half an hour for PCs- instead turn up when you are paid from.
Rarely if ever getting a lunch break- breaks can be missed due to pressures of work, but if it is consistent then it breaks the regulations.
No longer making the system work by putting themselves at personal risk of consequence and instead ensuring the bureaucracy put in place is followed precisely.
Refusing overtime requests (which I suspect holding down pay will cause anyway)- counterintuitively rather than make up that loss of pay through overtime, workforces disengage.
A refusal to do voluntary roles. Public order policing is entirely voluntary and officers cannot be compelled to do it.
None of this would require coordination and it breaches no laws or regulations. Some are criticised as being ‘Working To Rule’ but that js am odd criticism given that it simply means the rules are being followed- if that creates problems then change the rules.
Many of the above are likely to happen without a single attempt at coordination because they are natural responses to feeling alienated by your employer.
The bigger danger to the Government is that if Police Officers have independent pay panels which are only independent up until their recommendation is made and then are overruled by Government the case may start to be made that Police should have greater rights to take industrial action.
3 comments
>Police officers in Scotland are considering what industrial action they could take after rejecting a flat £565 annual pay increase as “derisory”.
I wonder what action they could take, given that police officers effectively have no power to take any kind of industrial action:
>Police officers can be ordered to work at “any time, at any place, with any notice and for any duration”, he said, describing the restrictions on officers as a “singularly unique in the public sector”.
Police can make it extremely difficult to be ordered to work overtime:
>”So whilst police officers can be ordered to undertake overtime, they can’t be ordered to undertake overtime if no one can get hold of them,” Mr Steele added
But I think any kind of industrial action from the police would probably have to involve breaking the law in some way. The law criminalises asking officers to withdraw their services in any way, which makes it impossible to legally organise industrial action.
Here we go again 🙄
Like many emergency services workers. All police need to do is follow their regulations which enshrine their rights which are already routinely ignored.
Turning up at work an hour early for managers or half an hour for PCs- instead turn up when you are paid from.
Rarely if ever getting a lunch break- breaks can be missed due to pressures of work, but if it is consistent then it breaks the regulations.
No longer making the system work by putting themselves at personal risk of consequence and instead ensuring the bureaucracy put in place is followed precisely.
Refusing overtime requests (which I suspect holding down pay will cause anyway)- counterintuitively rather than make up that loss of pay through overtime, workforces disengage.
A refusal to do voluntary roles. Public order policing is entirely voluntary and officers cannot be compelled to do it.
None of this would require coordination and it breaches no laws or regulations. Some are criticised as being ‘Working To Rule’ but that js am odd criticism given that it simply means the rules are being followed- if that creates problems then change the rules.
Many of the above are likely to happen without a single attempt at coordination because they are natural responses to feeling alienated by your employer.
The bigger danger to the Government is that if Police Officers have independent pay panels which are only independent up until their recommendation is made and then are overruled by Government the case may start to be made that Police should have greater rights to take industrial action.