NAPO and Unison members in South Yorkshire Probation Service last week suspended a planned 24 hour strike against jobs cuts which management are trying to impose.
Several staff have already taken voluntary redundancy/voluntary early retirement, but the management plan to restructure the service and cut middle management and admin staff.
The strike was against compulsory redundancies, but the two unions are also opposing the redundancy selection process management have used. By choosing to attack managers and admin workers whilst “preserving frontline services” the management have sought to divide staff the better to push cuts through.
The strike was suspended after Amanda Cullen, the hated “Director of Human Resources and Operational Development”, approached union reps offering to adopt a previously dead-in-the-water policy which would require a six week “period of reflection” and a lot more union scrutiny of redundancy processes. Crucially, she also offered to enter into written agreement extending the two unions’ opportunity to strike without a further ballot by 10 weeks (!)
SYPS bosses are clearly on the back foot and scared of strike action. The run-up to the strike saw huge pressure being put on staff by managers to break the strike, particularly in the Approved Premises Division. These staff, who mainly look after High and Very High Risk offenders in a residential setting, were solid in support of the planned action. They refused to provide “life and limb cover” and insisted that night staff would be walking off the job at midnight on the Thursday night and not returning until midnight the following night.
Hopefully the unions can use the extra time to win this dispute without the need for action, but this is unlikely. They will need to maintain their members’ commitment to action to ensure that when it does need to be taken, it will have maximum impact.
By a bail hostel worker
