- Conference
- Police Staff Conference 2004
- Date
- 9 February 2004
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference deplores the cost cutting measures used throughout the police service that major on reducing staff numbers to what is less than a safe minimum. Conference is concerned at the effect this has on an already dissatisfied public resulting in our members, and in turn their families, being placed under extreme stress.
Conference notes the sickness levels in many forces are high and reflect, not so much the number of accidents that take place in a police environment, but the careless disregard with which our managers treat Police Staff. We note with concern that as soon as extra pay is involved so the staffing requirements fall – we note how, on Bank Holidays,management are quick to appreciate that there will be less crime, less accidents and domestics and therefore less need for the presence of Police Staff.
We note that those of our members who fall prey to resulting stress related complaints are further abused by management teams who call upon the might of sickness monitoring schemes, designed for the most part not to help our members but to intimidate them into returning to work too soon, or giving up and getting out.
Conference therefore calls upon our national negotiators to:
1)seek information from across all forces to establish what are perceived as safe staffing levels;
2)to enter into discussions with our employers over criteria for minimum staffing levels;
3)link staffing levels with risk assessment;
4)convince our employers it is their insistence on short staffing that results in desperate sickness levels and that UNISON will be pleased to work with them to reduce hardship on our membership;
5)to negotiate with the national employers an agreed stress/psychological assessment of those staff in work areas where sickness levels are higher than the force average.