Police Federation in push for right to strike

10:30am Thursday 22nd May 2008

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POLICE officers in York and North Yorkshire claim they have had enough of being pushed around by the Government over pay.

Mark Botham, chairman of the North Yorkshire Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file bobbies, said the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith should back down in a pay row.

His comments come as police officers in England and Wales have voted by a big majority to lobby the Government for the right to strike.

Of those who voted, 93 per cent wanted independent Police Arbitration Tribunal decisions to be made binding.

And in the absence of binding arbitration, 86 per cent said the police federation should lobby for officers to be allowed "full industrial rights".

The vote followed a dispute over a 2.5 per cent pay rise to be awarded in stages.

The Police Federation says the decision by the Home Secretary to pay officers the 2.5 per cent pay backdated to December 1, instead of September, effectively reduces the pay rise to only 1.9 per cent. Mr Botham said: "The fact police officers in Scotland have been given the rise in full when their colleagues in England, Wales and Northern Ireland haven't is a disgrace.

"We want to put pressure on the Government to pay us in full what we deserve."

The result of the ballot was announced at the Police Federation's conference in Bournemouth.

Ballot papers were sent to 140,000 police constables, sergeants and inspectors, and 60,572 of them voted - a turn-out of 43 per cent.

The police are currently banned from going on strike or taking other industrial action, and any such action is a criminal offence.

Back in January 75 off-duty officers from York and North Yorkshire joined 22,000 officers at a rally in London.

At their conference, members of the Scottish Police Federation rejected the right to demand full strike action but voted narrowly in favour of seeking other industrial rights.

There was less anger about pay levels in Scotland, as police officers had their 2007-8 pay rise backdated to September 2007, giving them the full benefit of the 2.5 per cent increase.

Colleagues in other parts of the UK had their increase backdated only to December.