As you will be aware the Home Secretary (Jacqui Smith)
has reneged on the pay deal. Arbitration found in favour of the
police service staff side and awarded a 2.5% pay increase across
the board. The Home Secretary decided that the award would not be
backdated to the 1st September 2007 and this means that the award
is only worth 1.9% in real terms a fact that the Home Secretary
appears to gloat at in a letter to the treasury. The result of this
'underhand and despicable' course of action is justified anger amongst
police officers of all ranks. As is the nature of the police service
we are professional people with an important role to play in society
and we will not lower ourselves to the level of this Government.
With this in mind there are a number of courses of action open to
us, not least of all is to lobby your local MP. In addition to betraying
us the Home Secretary then decided to offer a fully backdated pay
deal to police staff despite claims that pay deals over 2.0% would
be inflationary. This cannot be seen in any other way than a direct
attack on the police officers in this country and a determined attempt
to undo many years of hard work.
On the 23rd January 2008 a rally was held in London and all forces
in England and Wales and all ranks were represented by 22,500 officers
leaving the Home Secretary in no doubt as to the strength of feeling
towards her incompetence and underhand move.
Below are a number of links to various lobbying tools, petitions
and suggested text for letters to your MP's, make use of them and
for those that are off duty come and join us in London. Further
details can be obtained from the Branch Boards.
[Lobbying
Your MP] [Draft
MP Letter] [Online
MP Lobbying] [British
Police Strikes] [Petition
Fair Pay] [Petition
Backdate Pay] [EDM494]
[EDM
527] [EDM
528] [EDM
512] [EDM
777] [DISCUSSION
FORUMS] [Arbitration
Decision] [Gordon
Brown Letter]
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