Probation Service Strike Back

Today members in the Probation Service of England and Wales organised through Napo walked out of work at 12 noon in order to take industrial action in the form of a 24-hour strike. This follows the conclusive ballot result where 84% of those polled showed their willingness to take part in opposition to Chris Grayling’s ridiculous and dangerous so-called “Transforming Rehabilitation” agenda.

This is only the fourth time in Napo’s 101 year history that the union has announced industrial action, and here in Leicester they took strike action in style, setting high standards that will provide inspiration for all future strike action by unions. Firstly the hundred plus workers who walked out of work together proudly and defiantly advertised their strike action wide and far by occupying the bridge outside their workplace. And with loud cheers and a variety of colourful placards they let the world know of their resistance to the government’s brutal agenda of privatisation. A righteous protest that was met with honks of support from passing cars.

From the bridge, Steve Bradley a member of the Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Service branch of Napo explained to the Socialist Party:

“We’re on strike today because we are complaining and showing protest about Chris Grayling’s plan to transforming rehabilitation agenda, which is basically to privatise 70% of the probation service; sell it off to the lowest bidder basically, and put public safety at risk. We work very hard, we are not a failing organization. Probation Trusts across the country have either been voted as being good or excellent in the services that they do, and we are already bringing down rates of re-offending by 5% when you take prison into account, and 6% when you just take community sentencing into account. Chris Grayling is complaining that there are still stubbornly high rates of re-offending rates among those who are on short-term sentences, but the probation service does not have any involvement with those at the moment, and if he would give us involvement with them then we would be able to do some work with them too, and bring down the stubbornly high re-offending rates that he is complaining about.”

The enthused strikers then marched to the city centre en masse, where at the clock tower they led a multitude of chants denouncing the privatisation, which they continued for around an hour: engaging the public in discussion by distributing leaflets to build popular support for their strike action. Then to round off their protest we all set off on an impromptu march around the city, on what for me turned out to one of the most empowering strike actions that I have ever been privileged enough to support.

Here in the heart of the city on a cold and windy day Johnnie Hermiston, a member of Napo’s National Executive, elaborated on the governments brutal plan “to privatise a high performing public sector organization and probation service and replace it with a bunch of multi-national corporations whose only interest is in making an immoral profit out of the misery of crime.” As he pointed out: “Here in Leicestershire and Rutland we meet and exceed the government’s targets every year, we are rated as an excellently performing probation service, yet they want to kick us into the dustbin and replace us with the likes of Serco and G4S.” Hermiston added:

“Everybody but everybody involved in the field of probation, and I am talking about academics, practitioners, politicians of all colours (even some Tories), think that this plan is madness. Basically what Grayling wants to do is line the pockets of his friends in multi-nationals like Serco and G4S, and we all know how ineffective they are in running public services — both being under investigation at the moment by the serious fraud offices for tens of millions of pounds of fraud in the government tagging contract for the England Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice are being very tight-lipped about the risks surrounding this as well. There have been a number of freedom of requests made to them which they have refused. One of their risk assessments has been published however — it was leaked to the Guardian in the summer — and one of the most telling things was that they said that these changes will bring about an 18% plus risk of a compromise in operational delivery.”

Other than endangering the public through their reckless behaviour Hermiston made clear another reason for Napo taking industrial action, noting:

“We are on strike today in order support the men, women and children of Leicestershire and Rutland, in order to make it plane to them that what this government wants to do is to ideologically drive out the public sector and replace it with their cronies in the city, so they can go on and get big fat non-executive directorships in a couple of years. John Reid the former home secretary, who was no friend of the probation service, now sits in the House of Lords: he also sits on the board of G4S.”

Hermiston further drew attention to the fact that if the privatisation of probation services succeeds, then around the end of next year the terms and conditions of all probation workers “will inevitably go out the window and people will leave [the service].” This will of course mean that “People who have been trained by the public sector, which tax-payers have paid for [will end up quitting, meaning] their skills-sets are going to be lost as they are not going to want to stay in these jobs when they are paid a pittance compared to what we get now.”

This is all disastrous for our already effective and efficient probation services and can only lead to major problems in the future. Therefore, if you are free tomorrow between 8 am and 12 Noon show your support for the Napo workers and get down to their head office in town to support their strike. Or alternately sign their e-petition which is available online here.