Received from: POA
Congress welcomes the Labour government’s New Deal for workers and is committed to ensuring that part of the manifesto is delivered in a timely manner. Congress welcomes the commitment from a Labour government to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Minimum Service Levels legislation, however Congress commits the General Council to campaign to also repeal Section 127 of the Criminal Justice Public Order Act 1994 which restricts prison officer grades in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from taking any form of industrial action and making it a criminal offence to do so or to induce that action.
Congress notes the right to strike is a fundamental human right under international law and that the POA have now been restricted for 30 years and find itself under a permanent injunction and contempt of court. This pernicious piece of legislation should and must be repealed given that there are no adequate compensatory mechanisms in place for resolving local and national disputes or effective mechanisms for resolving pay. Further, Congress welcomes the fact that the ECHR has accepted an application from the POA on these restrictions and a period of negotiations should take place as a first step between government and union as part of that application.
POA