Since the AGM in Newcastle last week and the controversy revealed and discussed on this platform, it's interesting to note that the post has been viewed an astonishing 2,188 times and attracted 66 comments. By comparison the subject has not been discussed at all on another well known social media site, gaining just 2 mentions.
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Dear Xxxxxxxx,
Napo AGM authorises ballot for Industrial Action on Probation pay and workloads
At last week's hugely successful Napo Annual General Meeting, members instructed the General Secretary and National Chair to initiate a campaign of industrial action to reject the government pay freeze, the 2021 pay offer and excessive workloads.
Motions calling for a trade dispute to be registered and a statutory ballot of our Probation members should the employer fail to engage in further negotiations, were overwhelmingly carried.
In some highly emotional debates at AGM, members explained the impact of low pay and excessive workloads on their health and wellbeing. At a time when we are facing soaring fuel bills, the prospect of a hike in National Insurance and continuing inflation rates, a pay freeze is a pay cut and members deserve better.
These decisions followed the outcomes of recent indicative ballots across Napo, UNISON and GMB which recorded votes of 99%,98% and 86% respectively in opposition to the pay freeze and pay offer.
What next?
Napo and our sister unions will do our best to seek further negotiations with the employer, and next week we are due to meet with the new Minister for Probation, Policing and Re-offending. As things stand we are of the view that there is little scope for manoeuvre and that a trade dispute is all but inevitable.
If this happens it’s simply because the predicament of our members has been ignored and that the employer and government are banking on our members being unwilling to take a stand over pay and excessive workloads.
Napo will therefore be working with our sister unions in Probation, as well as those representing staff across HMPPS who are also facing derisory pay offers, to explore the possibilities of co-ordinated industrial action if this becomes necessary.
Preparing for a statutory ballot
As was made clear to members in the material that we issued in the indicative ballot, industrial action can only be invoked if certain legal thresholds under the Trade Union Act 2016 are met. These include stipulations around the turnout and percentage of members voting in a postal ballot in favour of action as well as identifying the intended action itself, but in Napo’s case we have a high level of confidence from the turnout in the indicative ballot that we can meet these challenges. Our result was the most significant of its kind in recent Napo history.
At the present time we have not agreed what a programme of industrial action would look like in the event that it becomes necessary, but if a statutory postal ballot is held, all members taking part will know exactly what they are voting for.
Where are you?
It’s absolutely vital that in addition to knowing the up to date home address and workplace for all of our Probation service members, we need to be able to contact you with news about the pay campaign via a private e-mail address or a mobile phone number for text messages. Please check that your private e-mail address is up to date and please encourage your colleagues to do the same. You can do this by logging into the member area on the website or contacting your branch membership secretary.
Look out for more news
You can be assured that your union will do everything possible to avoid having to enter into an industrial campaign but we will be led by the will of our members, and last week’s debates at Conference were a good indicator of the mood of determination that exists and that we have reached a line in the sand after years of injustice.
The employer has been advised of the situation and at the meeting with the Minister next week we will be asking him to intervene directly as we seek to avoid a damaging trade dispute.
We will be mailing out regularly to update members, but please make sure your work colleagues are receiving our emails and encourage any who aren’t members to join us – the only way to get change is to stand together!
Show Racism the Red Card – Wear Red Day 2021 (click for pics)
General Secretary Ian Lawrence and National Chair Katie Lomas are wearing red today to show solidarity with Show Racism the Red Card, working to stamp out racism in our local communities and wider society. Please show your support on social media using #WRD21 and visit their website to see how you can support them. https://www.theredcard.org
AGM Follow up session with Jim Barton, SRO for Probation Reform – save the date!
Our AGM speakers were all engaging but there was so much demand for discussion with Jim Barton he offered to hold a follow up session with members. Jim is the Senior Responsible Officer for Probation reform and Electronic Monitoring. We have arranged to hold a virtual Q&A session with him on 5 November 2.30 – 3.30. Please keep this free in your calendar and lookout for the full details next week.
More extensive news from the Napo AGM will follow in the Napo Online Magazine, likely to be published shortly. This will include coverage of some superb contributions from various speakers, and the key decisions that will impact on our members across all the employers where Napo are represented.
Best Wishes
Ian Lawrence General Secretary
Dear Xxxxxxxx,
At last week's hugely successful Napo Annual General Meeting, members instructed the General Secretary and National Chair to initiate a campaign of industrial action to reject the government pay freeze, the 2021 pay offer and excessive workloads.
Motions calling for a trade dispute to be registered and a statutory ballot of our Probation members should the employer fail to engage in further negotiations, were overwhelmingly carried.
In some highly emotional debates at AGM, members explained the impact of low pay and excessive workloads on their health and wellbeing. At a time when we are facing soaring fuel bills, the prospect of a hike in National Insurance and continuing inflation rates, a pay freeze is a pay cut and members deserve better.
These decisions followed the outcomes of recent indicative ballots across Napo, UNISON and GMB which recorded votes of 99%,98% and 86% respectively in opposition to the pay freeze and pay offer.
What next?
Napo and our sister unions will do our best to seek further negotiations with the employer, and next week we are due to meet with the new Minister for Probation, Policing and Re-offending. As things stand we are of the view that there is little scope for manoeuvre and that a trade dispute is all but inevitable.
If this happens it’s simply because the predicament of our members has been ignored and that the employer and government are banking on our members being unwilling to take a stand over pay and excessive workloads.
Napo will therefore be working with our sister unions in Probation, as well as those representing staff across HMPPS who are also facing derisory pay offers, to explore the possibilities of co-ordinated industrial action if this becomes necessary.
Preparing for a statutory ballot
As was made clear to members in the material that we issued in the indicative ballot, industrial action can only be invoked if certain legal thresholds under the Trade Union Act 2016 are met. These include stipulations around the turnout and percentage of members voting in a postal ballot in favour of action as well as identifying the intended action itself, but in Napo’s case we have a high level of confidence from the turnout in the indicative ballot that we can meet these challenges. Our result was the most significant of its kind in recent Napo history.
At the present time we have not agreed what a programme of industrial action would look like in the event that it becomes necessary, but if a statutory postal ballot is held, all members taking part will know exactly what they are voting for.
Where are you?
It’s absolutely vital that in addition to knowing the up to date home address and workplace for all of our Probation service members, we need to be able to contact you with news about the pay campaign via a private e-mail address or a mobile phone number for text messages. Please check that your private e-mail address is up to date and please encourage your colleagues to do the same. You can do this by logging into the member area on the website or contacting your branch membership secretary.
Look out for more news
You can be assured that your union will do everything possible to avoid having to enter into an industrial campaign but we will be led by the will of our members, and last week’s debates at Conference were a good indicator of the mood of determination that exists and that we have reached a line in the sand after years of injustice.
The employer has been advised of the situation and at the meeting with the Minister next week we will be asking him to intervene directly as we seek to avoid a damaging trade dispute.
We will be mailing out regularly to update members, but please make sure your work colleagues are receiving our emails and encourage any who aren’t members to join us – the only way to get change is to stand together!
Show Racism the Red Card – Wear Red Day 2021 (click for pics)
General Secretary Ian Lawrence and National Chair Katie Lomas are wearing red today to show solidarity with Show Racism the Red Card, working to stamp out racism in our local communities and wider society. Please show your support on social media using #WRD21 and visit their website to see how you can support them. https://www.theredcard.org
AGM Follow up session with Jim Barton, SRO for Probation Reform – save the date!
Our AGM speakers were all engaging but there was so much demand for discussion with Jim Barton he offered to hold a follow up session with members. Jim is the Senior Responsible Officer for Probation reform and Electronic Monitoring. We have arranged to hold a virtual Q&A session with him on 5 November 2.30 – 3.30. Please keep this free in your calendar and lookout for the full details next week.
More extensive news from the Napo AGM will follow in the Napo Online Magazine, likely to be published shortly. This will include coverage of some superb contributions from various speakers, and the key decisions that will impact on our members across all the employers where Napo are represented.
Best Wishes
Ian Lawrence General Secretary
Katie Lomas National Chair
In short:
ReplyDelete"... government are banking on our members being unwilling to take a stand over pay and excessive workloads... we have not agreed what a programme of industrial action would look like... You can be assured that your union will do everything possible to avoid having to enter into an industrial campaign..."
Like the 'nailed on' EVR agreement? Or the as-yet-unpaid contractually agreed pay awards? Or no pay rise for years & years & years?
Even shorter:
ReplyDelete"At last week's hugely successful Napo Annual General Meeting... Motions were overwhelmingly carried... Our result was the most significant of its kind in recent Napo history... More extensive news from the Napo AGM will follow shortly."
So what was the most significant event in recent napo history?
"The employer has been advised of the situation and at the meeting with the Minister next week we will be asking him to intervene directly as we seek to avoid a damaging trade dispute."
Is that it? Or am I missing something? I accept I may be a few braincells short but will someone please help me to see the big picture here?
I will try , Napo sold out our terms by letting go of the national terms and condition book. Lawrence of cowboyville Mr raho and Mr rogers saw that off without officer chair objection. So went it any union recognition agreements . Any strike action no matter the actual number of voters not just bullshitting percentages will have to declared. The employers might say ok we'll talk a bit and shift seats but they could just state the hard ball. Napo your not recognised as the civil services union with any mandate on the terms probation staff have. No court in the land would force an agreement to recognise to negotiate with Napo. The big question is why is there no reproduced and updated position to ensure recognition rights. I doubt Napo could lawfully take strike action so nor can staff without putting their contracts at serious risk. Come on Napo let's see the recognition agreement since the changeover. Let's see the full protections for the recognition agreement. Come on Napo let us see it. Or are we on another white knuckle ride to more costly dissapointment.
DeleteJB good job on the hits for calling out Napo failures to manage fair racial practices. How on earth would employers take them seriously on behalf of bme issues now. Still no recognition of her failing from the chair then.
22:39 Unfortunately a flawed attempt. I have seen it repeated several times on this blog that Dean Rogers and David Raho were in some way responsible for 'letting go of the national terms and condition book' This is a complete myth based on a misunderstanding.
DeleteFact Check: Following TR the instead of the MoJ/HMPPS meeting with Trust representatives (Trusts were not in competition with each other) the owners of CRCs met with the NPS/HMPPS. This would normally be the Napo Chair and GS. It became clear from the outset that under the terms of TR that were negotiated between the unions and HMPPS/MoJ the CRCs were not bound by the NNC rulebook and in fact this was considered to be a restriction on them doing the very thing that Grayling had intended to do.
The first party to walk away from the table was the NPS. At first they were called back on advice from the MoJ but when they returned to the table the mood had turned and CRC owners simply refused to attend and did their own thing. Other CRCs stopped coming or participating as it was a voluntary arrangement under TR and it was clear that the minister was not going to sanction anyone. The unions had no recourse. There was no stomach for a fight. David Raho was not even a member of the NEC at this time but those who have been most critical were but clearly didn’t understand that pay and conditions had been decoupled by TR not by anyone in Napo.
What David Raho and Dean Rogers did was to be pragmatic in negotiating with employers, in collaboration with both UNISON and GMB regional officials, was to make an agreement with one of the CRC owners who ran CRCs in TV and London that bound them in a signed agreement to where possible still honour the NNC rulebook even if without this partnership agreement they were not bound under the terms of their contract with the MoJ to do so. They chose to be bound by agreement. They honoured this until the end of their contract, and this afforded considerable protections to all staff. All other branches were advised to make similar agreements because actually the freedom from the NNC rulebook can go both ways. This was not of course an end to collective bargaining but did acknowledge that national collective bargaining had not functioned effectively for some time rather devolved collective bargaining that now had to take place with the reality of so many employers. Unfortunately one or two branch chairs couldn’t get their heads around the fact that circumstances had and needed to change and hung on to the dream of imposing their will on private company owners collectively.
Finally realising the NNC was no longer functioning Chris Winters then Napo Co-Chair brought a motion to National AGM (nothing to do with either Dean Rogers or David Raho) that effectively and officially withdrew Napo from the no longer functioning or in fact by then non-existent NNC. Conference voted overwhelmingly for the motion probably not aware that not even Napo had been attending the meetings.
Because we are conditioned against speaking about race discrimination problems publicly. It is well known that victims of race discrimination fear penalties if they report abuse or speak up.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar vein of "we're doing amazingly well, thank you", here's some data which our jolly super government thinks justifies doing sweet fuck all:
ReplyDeleteDeaths from Covid (w/in 28 days of a +ve test) between:
28 June & 28 Oct 2020 = 3,719
27 June & 21 Oct 2021 = 11,089
THREE TIMES THE NUMBER OF DEATHS
And Johnson wants to celebrate by making Carrie the First Lady.
The big question is: Will this latest insult to Probation Staff trigger enough anger and solidarity to get some collectivism and resistance going, or are they all so traumatised and exhausted to get up and go for it?
ReplyDeleteTHere is both exhaustion and anger in equal measure, whether there is the collectivism is key
The strike won't happen. There is no will amongst the majority and most of us, at least the majority who are not at the top of the payscale, know we're not badly paid and have been insulated against the worst of covid on the economy.
ReplyDeleteNo idea where you blew in from 13:56. We are very poorly paid, and get the worst -pay freeze- from being chained into the civil service, but denied the best - pensions maternity deal, etc. There is growing anger, and not just from lifers like me watching the service go down the pan. And strikes are one thing, but there are other forms of industrial action. I am for the withdrawing of goodwill for the duration. They keep "thanking us" for our goodwill. But not paying us. I envisage a period where I might actually read, carefully, and reply to EVERY SINGLE EMAIL from my employers. If I start on a Monday, that might take me to .... the following Monday
DeleteNo, were not poorly paid. Band 4 is very similar to social work, police, teaching etc and if you want the same salary elsewhere in the voluntary or charitable sectors you're looking at line management, if not regional management responsibilities. If it weren't true, and if we could simply move to a better paid equivalent role, even more would have gone. The vast majority of those I've seen leave have gone for a pay cut or retirement.
DeleteI don't care about a pay cut, I want a manageable FT caseload of about 25
Newbies in probation are paid reasonably well in comparison to others with no work experience fresh out of university plus they get another degree in record time. They don’t tend to join a union, will not even think about going on strike, and are happy to leave once they are required to do some real work with anything approaching a full caseload - millennials are smart. If I were there age I'd do it for a laugh but I would not hang about.
ReplyDeleteIf he has any honour at all then I think Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence needs to stand aside now in the best interest of the union as under his lack of leadership Napo has become a toxic brand with little credibility and anyone associated with Napo leadership is viewed with ridicule and contempt. Oddly UNISON that are even worse are often not even worth mentioning. The Chair Katie Lomas also needs to go as under her leadership it has been the same old same old. Good people have resigned because of this pair.
There is stony silence in response to the outraged voices on this blog and and lack of response to one or two people who commented on the secret FB Blog says it all. They are out of touch and past their sell by dates. Did anyone clock Amy Rees's stand in praising the undynamic duo for all there hard work. What exactly have they been working hard on? Not on a pay rise. Not on workload reduction. No doubt they have already told HMPPS not to worry about industrial action as they will take care of it.
All the rumpus at conference distracted people from the fact that they went ahead against advice and bought another property with members money and still had to pay the £300,000 penalty that won them the argument to buy against those who said bite the bullet, pay the penalty, invest members money, and run the union remotely as there is no need for a London Office draining union funds. However, there is now not quite enough in the coffers for the redundancy payments for all staff once the union is run down so Lawrence will hang on until the bitter end in the hope, he will be first in the line.