Exploited prison workers prepare for strikes

Members of construction union UCATT, employed in the Prisons Service are on collision course with their employers having rejected a derogatory pay award for 2007.

Incompetent prison bosses took nearly nine months before they even made a pay offer. To add insult to injury they then offered a below inflation award of just 2 per cent.

In a consultative ballot UCATT members voted by a margin of 57.9% to 42.1% to reject the pay offer. Members of other unions with “industrial” prison workers GMB and Unite also rejected the pay offer.

The latest slight on workers comes after prison bosses have imposed a series of below inflation pay rises. The workers who include locksmiths, carpenters, painters, bricklayers, cooks, gardeners, plumbers and electricians, are paid 10k less then what private sector workers receive for similar work. The low pay and shockingly poor management has created severe recruitment and retention problems and prisons increasingly have to reply on expensive outside contractors to perform key repair and maintenance work. This is also creating security fears as contractors have fewer security checks than permanent staff.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT, said: “Fat cat prison bosses could not even be bothered to even offer our low paid hard working members a pay rise for 9 months. When it eventually arrived it was desriory. After years of abuse and high handed treatment our workers are saying enough is enough.”

A last ditch meeting of the unions and the Prison Service is scheduled for 29 January. If an improved offer is not made at that meeting then it is likely that unions will move towards a full ballot for strike action and a work to rule.

Maintenance staff work in a hostile environment, there have been many cases where they have been threatened or intimated by prisoners or their families. For no additional pay they are expected to deal with dirty protests, prison suicides search prisoners, place them on report and supervise them in workplaces. If these voluntary duties were withdrawn significant extra pressure and work would be placed on prison officers, who are already struggling to deal with overcrowded prisons.”

Mr Ritchie, added: “No worker considers strike action lightly but our members are now at the end of their tethers.”