Dear Xxxxxxxx
Unions demand action on new Covid risks - important information for trade union members
In yesterday’s mail out, we advised members that Napo had been involved in urgent contact with employers following the new Lockdown announcements on Monday. Since then we now had an opportunity to consult with our sister trade unions and consider the information that has been reaching us from our activists who have been working extremely hard to respond to members enquiries across the NPS, CRCs, Prisons, Courts and Police Stations.
The attached Joint Unions' bulletin sets out a number of concerns that are contained in a joint letter to the Director General Probation READ MORE HERE. News on developments in Probation Northern Ireland and Cafcass will be cascaded via Napo NI Branch and the Napo Family Court Section respectively.
In advance of the important meeting with NPS/HMPPS senior leaders tomorrow, the unions have made it very clear that urgent action needs to be taken in response to the issues that we have raised. The unions also intend to seek engagement with Justice Ministers about the disconnect between their Government's unrealistic expectations of service delivery against the reality of the Covid Pandemic and the very serious threats that this poses to the wellbeing of all our members.
More updates for members will be issued as soon as there is more to report.
Ian Lawrence Katie Lomas
General Secretary Napo Chair
UNIONS DEMAND ACTION ON NEW COVID RISKS
Napo, UNISON and GMB/SCOOP have written to Amy Rees, Director General for Probation, today to request urgent talks on the HMPPS response to the Government’s announcement on Monday of a second severe lockdown in England and Wales with effect from today.
The new lockdown is the result of the exponential rise in Covid cases across our two nations which in turn has been caused by the spread of the highly contagious and therefore much more dangerous new variant of the virus.
We understand that at one AP in the North West, 15 residents are self- isolating of whom 13 have tested positive, alongside 5 members of staff of whom 3 have tested positive for Covid. These figures bring home the seriousness of the rise in cases and the risks now faced by our members.
We understand that EDMs are currently being reviewed, but we do not consider that this is an adequate response by itself. While some Regional Directors have been positively engaging with local TU reps to discuss the EDM reviews, some have insisted that they will only share the EDM once it has been reviewed which is not, in our view, proper engagement.
The unions have therefore asked Amy Rees as a matter of urgency that:
1. HMPPS provides us with a risk assessment of the new variant of the Covid virus to allow us to properly understand the risks it poses to our members and service users and to ensure that NPS is taking all necessary steps to protect its workforce.
2. Regional Directors convene meetings with their local trade unions to discuss the EDM reviews and to agree the necessary measures to protect staff including those staff working in other workplaces such as prisons, courts and partner agencies.
3. A meeting is convened between the unions and the Residential Division to agree appropriate measures within the AP estate.
4. All face to face meetings with service users migrate to on-line platforms with only the most pressing public protection risks dealt with in person.
5. RAG ratings are reviewed, with particular reference to the concerns the unions expressed prior to Christmas in respect of London and other areas with very high infection rates remaining on amber and the message that is sent to staff when they are told that the RAG rating only refers to service delivery and not to their personal safety in the workplace.
6. All Regions ensure that positive Covid test data for staff/service users is communicated in real time to trade union representatives.
7. The advice and guidance for clinically extremely vulnerable and clinically vulnerable staff is reviewed with immediate effect to provide the necessary protection for these employees in respect of the new variant.
8. A review of staff cover and multi-site working arrangements takes place to ensure that asymptomatic staff are not unwittingly carrying the virus into other workplaces.
9. A referral is made up to Ministers to the effect that it is no longer possible for NPS to provide business as usual cover to courts under circumstances where staffing shortages are putting unreasonable pressure on those who remain in the workplace and sentencers are limiting the use of virtual hearings.
10. An urgent review of staff well-being and measures is put in place to support staff during this second lockdown.
ADVICE TO MEMBERS
The three unions are working hard to secure the best protection for members against the new Covid variant and the steep rise in cases in the population. If you have any concerns about your personal safety, or the way in which you or your colleagues are being asked to work, please speak as a matter of urgency to your local union rep or branch.
My confidence lies with UNISON and GMB achieving something.
ReplyDeleteYes quite agree no one has confidence in Lawrence and Lomas . However all 3 unions GMB are irrelevant anyway. Unison fail here the only effective position is to lodge a safety dispute. Call for immediate demands to be met . Lobby members for immediate suspension from working anywhere until provisions for home heating office supplies and parking of all 121 work until safe determined by vaccine periods of protections. Nalo need to grow up pathetic parasites have done nothing of use or substance. Come on wakey wakey. Get behind the members for once.
DeleteUnions demand action
DeleteIt does not appear to me there was any demand or what ? I doubt they could demand a cup of tea in a cafe .
"Too little, too late" seems to be the mission statement of far too many UK organisations, Napo included.
ReplyDeleteUK Govt - "Covid test rule for arrivals – International travellers will need to show a negative Covid-19 test before being allowed into the UK, the government has announced. The rule will apply from next week"
Next Week?!? Should have been implemented March 2020!!
It's not easy to speak out against the poor covid provision in some prison settings. Or why we have to be in the prison all the time. No work from home where possible for us. I fear the threat of redeployment into the community and alienating colleagues.
ReplyDeleteNearly 70,000 new cases & 1,325 deaths. And that's just TODAY!
ReplyDeleteMayor of London has declared a Major Incident
Where's the guidance? Where's the support for staff? Where's the protection for probation staff & those subject to supervision by probation staff? Where's the vaccine for frontline staff?
HMPPS? - Silent
Napo? Silent
NPS? Silent
We are in a far more precarious position than we were in March 2020 yet the roads are busier, public transport is rammed out, shops are heaving, no-one is being paid to isolate or stay at home, furlough is being abused, the self-employed are being forgotten (again).
Its a liquid shitstorm.
Where are the "excellent leaders" now?
Boris sets the leadership of this country . Scruffy fatty untidy hair. He's bullish attacking stammering rhetoric is the model of reckless. From that all the leadership's follow empty minds just orders. The union's just as vacuous .
DeleteI'll say it if no-one else will - Frank, if you're reading this, you were pretty much on the money with your forecast.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that the bit about things improving post-May 2021 also comes to pass.
A very important read that raises many questions:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/08/us-chaos-britain-fox-news-trump-presidency
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/08/key-workers-covid-front-lines-
ReplyDelete"Our key workers are the backbone of our country... Many are low paid, use public transport to get to work and, by the nature of their jobs, experience social mixing. By going to work to keep society functioning they are exposing themselves and their families to greater risk. They deserve so much better... Making every workplace Covid-secure must be a national priority."
OK. Then Ashworth says:
"The TUC is urging workplace safety guidance to be updated to include greater use of mask wearing, social distancing and, crucially, the introduction of safety standards for ventilation."
Why the fuckity-fuck is this not in place already? We've had two lockdowns. What is it that means a covid-19-secure workplace is so unattractive to those in charge?
Then he writes:
"Is it really any wonder that fewer than 20% of those who need to isolate do so fully? Many of the lowest paid have been placed in an impossible situation. Too often they feel they have no option but to continue working while infected with Covid, because inadequate sick pay and isolation support would otherwise mean unpaid bills or going into debt."
And? Again, why has this not already been addressed and put in place? What the fuckity-fuck-fuck are HM's Opposition doing beyond getting paid to write the bleedin obvious in a sympathetic newspaper?
Its no wonder that Napo are behind the Govt, who themselves are so far behind the curve they can see up their own policy think-tank.
Its criminal negligence by the Government and by the Opposition. THREE lockdowns & still no covid-secure workplaces, no stay-at-home payments, no free access to IT for children - the IT never materialised & the network providers are making a fortune via whichever 'G' the kids are using - in fact NONE of the promised promises, as usual.
At least the teachers' unions had the courage to state the workplace was too dangerous with insufficient protection, insufficient contingencies and no coherent management by Williamson & his colouring book strategy.
Sorry, probation people - you'll just have to hope for the best with a 1-in-20 chance of catching the virus if you're in the capital & its environs.
The country voted for the Tories thanks to the northern complicit. The Tories are run by big business and the working classes suffer for their profits. Corbin offered free internet in all homes Johnson offered faster but expensive internet. Corbin offered public services . The Tories offered lower taxes. Corbin offered UK based own drugs making factories . Tories offered splitting the NHS for profits and costed insurance care in secret to the yanks . Where is trump by the way . Corbin offered public investments schools homes building better councils local provisions community based interventions support and training for unemployed. The Tories wanted a bigger faster train hs2 to Birmingham. This country gets what it deserves from their gross incompetant voting . Well done northern wankers.
DeleteAlas, Corbyn (yes, I'm going with the traditional spelling) was a naive, witless, dithering, and largely absent puppet whose sheer egotism and total lack of self-awareness rendered him unelectable - even when pitted against the weakest and most ridiculous Conservative shower to stand for election in a century. The arseholes running Momentum - of which you may well be one - are responsible for what we have now and may well have set the Labour Party back 20 years in terms of popular support. Your anti-northern rant is horseshit designed to throw the blame elsewhere, and most sensible people I think understand that now. I'd rein it in a bit if I were you.
DeleteFair enough Corbyn appolgies. Your point of view is respected. Momentum oh no no never. I think labour needed to be clearly left and hold the line that was Corbyn dogma. The policies received costs scepticism but they were better for the people than right wing brexit. Sadly that 80 Tory majority didn't spring up in the south . Like I said red wall wankers .
DeleteThere are sad & alarming parallels to be drawn between trump's base & boris's majority, i.e. the desperate self-centred voter who votes for a promised share in untold riches, for alleged self-determination - a bit like the reality of a Nat Lottery jackpot win. But the dream is, for 99.99%, just a dream. There is a tiny self-interested majority who win every time, regardless of who is in power, i.e. The Powerful Rich. They make more profits at a faster rate under chummy Tory rule, but certainly didn't suffer under BlueLabour. They were bailed out after 2008 by the taxpayer - and have been draining the public coffers ever since with their outsourcing, gaming the financial markets, brexiteering & generally having a ball at the UK's expense. 'They' despise the unsophisticated half-wits who drink cheap beer & wine, who go to mccy-d's, who panic-buy bogroll, who whine about benefits, who have limited-to-no life choices.
DeleteLike trump has demonstrated with his recent actions, they wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire because (1) they probably wouldn't notice, (2) if they noticed they wouldn't care &/or (3) there would be no benefit or gain for them, so why bother.
The altruistic, dedicated elected MP taking their seat rather than the pay-off, fighting for the rights of their constituents, representing the people - not "the many", but the *people* - is a quaint old-fashioned notion.
Corbyn was well-meaning but flawed, a victim of "political correctness gone mad" whereby his '70's ethics & principles were woven into the noose with which he was hung out to dry. He wasn't a chameleon & was picked off by the predators.
At this time I can't identify anyone who offers a suitably genuine or credible lead for HM's Opposition. And the longer we have to endure the current circus act, the more we're becoming accustomed to & accepting of the selfish, incompetent, abusive fuckwits.
That's exactly how dumbing down works. Its divisive, its pre-meditated - and best of all, WE voted for it.
Thanks can't add to that a great read post and agree with you .
DeleteAfraid I don't agree at all. The post reads like a highly simplistic and deeply patronising list of the usual platitudes which are now used to cover the embarrassment of those that kept Corbyn in a "leadership" position for so long - and failed to foresee the implications. Decent govt requires more than just standing rigidly by a set of beliefs formulated whilst a student, and surrounding yourself only with those who share your exact world view. Its what BJ does, its what Corbyn did. A win by the left was always going to be more complicated than was anticipated by the likes of Corbyn, and he must take huge personal responsibility for the mess we now find ourselves in.
DeleteI don't think @04:22 reads like any kind of defence of corbyn. Its just an account of how a well-meaning man in a corduroy jacket was inadvertently squeezed into a position he was not suited for, how he stood out a mile and was subsequently sliced & diced by political assassins like the python's knight: "tis but a scratch".
DeleteI saw the election of corbyn as an overwhelming cry for something politically different, something more compassionate, more thoughtful, more socially-aware - sadly he wasn't the right person and, as @04:22 says, he was flawed; too flawed, in fact, to carry the task through.
Although it's not couched as a direct defence of Corbyn, it presents an explanation for the outcome of the December 2019 election which draws on the same arguments. The tone is condescending and assumes all the fault lies with a clueless or selfish electorate. I don't accept that. We vote within a system that requires an understanding of numbers and probability by those in leadership positions. Essentially an understanding of 'politics'. Corbyn wasn't flawed, he was childish in his apparent beliefs and completely unfit for any kind of office. He refused to acknowledge any of this... and the rest is history.
DeleteIf the 'fault' doesn't lie with the electorate - the elctorate that voted for Johnson & co based upon empty promises, blatant lies, fear-mongering & phantom sovereignty - where does it lie?
DeleteIf democracy is the will of the people, the outcome is their responsibility. If the people are misled, hoodwinked, lied to, misguided - how do you reconcile that? There's no trading standards for politicians, as johnson & co have proved time after time after time. They can, and have, tell more lies than truths with impunity.
99% of the electorate vote for selfish reasons every single time they vote because they believe they will benefit on a personal level, e.g. lower taxes, fewer immigrants, increased benefit payments, etc.
Again, that's a massively over-simplified view. Starting from that level of understanding of how democracy works, it would take a very long time to explain why you can't just point at the general public and say "this is all your fault". By the point of a general election the electorate can only vote for what's on the card, or abstain. If what's on the card was dictated by a handful of champagne socialist fools who thought it would be interesting to join a party for a few weeks just to support a leadership candidate who was too far left to ever get elected (basically a flash mob surfing the Boaty McBoatface stupidity that amused many in a pre-Brexit / pre-Covid world), then we should blame those arseholes. No foresight, no political awareness, but enough to limit the scope of the average voter to shit or bust.
Delete“The three unions are working hard to secure the best protection for members against the new Covid variant and the steep rise in cases in the population.”
ReplyDeleteLies, lies and more lies. I work in London and there’s not been so much as a whimper from Napo and it’s reps.