POLICE PROTEST “ABOUT MORE THAN PAY”

23-01-2008

As more than 1700 West Midlands police officers head to London for today’s national pay protest, their local union boss is warning there’s more at stake than money. Paul Tonks of the Police Federation accuses Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of having “another agenda.”

The Federation is expected to turn out more than 15,000 members on the streets of the capital following the government’s decision not to backdate a 2.5% wage increase recommended by independent arbitration.

When inflation is taken into account, the deal is worth only 1.9% in real terms - making it, effectively, a cut - and Tonks told The Stirrer in December that he’d rarely seen such anger among the membership (see link here).

This morning he insisted their resentment hasn’t subsided.

“If anything it’s become greater as time has gone on, as the impact of how we’ve been treated has sunk in,” he said.

“We entered arbitration knowing that it was binding, and that we would have to accept whatever it came up with. But it was binding on all sides.

“Then the Home Secretary put a red line through it.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We’ve gone through a modernisation and reform programme that hasn’t always been popular, but we’ve stuck with it.

“So for Jacqui Smith to do this, for what amounts to £21million when tax is taken into account, doesn’t make sense. That’s a drop on the ocean out of the police budget.

“There must be another agenda here. I don’t know what it is, but it can’t just be about pay."