07 December 2007

Police pay - strike? It's a no-brainer

The police are pretty pissed off with their pay award not being backdated to September (at least in England and Wales - in Scotland the executive saved itself the hassle and backdated the new settlement).

It's 2.5% which ain't particularly generous to start off with, but 1.9% without the backdating, which is pretty damn low, if you ask me.

But the point of this post is not really to debate the rights and wrongs of the police but to point out that the Police Federation (a kind of 'trade union' for the police although it is not affiliated to the TUC) has been considering asking for the right to strike to be extended to the police.

What's to consider? Just go for it, guys. After all, who's going to arrest you for going on strike illegally? The police? Er... they're on strike. It seems to me these guys have the government over a barrel. All they need to do is think the logic through.

I guess they could send in the army to arrest the striking police officers... er, hang on, they're all in the Middle East. Goddamnit!

It's the biggest "no brainer" I've seen all year.

3 comments:

Steve said...

Wow this hot very pink since I last visited in person rather than just reading the RSS feed.

Anyway, it's a PR thing, innit? An illegal strike by police ain't gonna make their jobs any easier...

Steve said...

Good typo by myself there. Hot pink rather than got pink.

T.N.T. said...

That's true and the original post was at least partly in jest - I was just thinking, who's gonna arrest the police if they're on strike? They'd need a new set of 'scab' police or something.