- Conference
- 2015 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 18 June 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that UNISON represents members working for police forces in England and Wales whose annual pay award is not decided by negotiations at the Police Staff Council for England and Wales. These members include:
a)Police staff working for forces which are currently opted out of the Police Staff Council, namely: Kent Police, Surrey Police and Thames Valley Police
b)Police staff working for private contractors providing services for police forces in England and Wales
Conference recognises that in those police forces currently opted out of the Police Staff Council, there are long established arrangements for negotiating the annual pay awards for police staff. There is no suggestion in this motion that these arrangements should change and Conference recognises that it is for the branches and members in those forces to determine their pay negotiating arrangements, taking relevant advice from the union at regional and national level in relation to matters such as equality proofing etc.
However, Conference believes that it is in the interests of all our police staff members for UNISON to take a role in co-ordinating the pay claims in both PSC and non-PSC forces to ensure that there is collaboration in the construction of claims where appropriate and that key service group objectives in relation to pay equality are mainstreamed.
Conference is also aware that many of the private contractors working in the police service do not properly recognise UNISON for the purposes of collective bargaining and do not therefore allow the union to negotiate over the annual uplift in pay, if any, that is awarded periodically to their staff.
Conference believes that this is unacceptable and that UNISON should be playing an active role in pay bargaining for those private sector police staff that we represent.
Conference therefore instructs the Service Group Executive to work with the UNISON Police Staff Council (PSC) Committee to:
1)gather information on the current pay negotiating arrangements for police staff in England and Wales which are outside the Police Staff Council, both in the public and private sectors;
2)explore with those branches and regions covering police staff in forces opted out of the PSC a means of potentially co-ordinating pay claims on an annual basis where this is possible;
3)seek recognition for the purposes of collective bargaining with all private contractors working for police forces in England and Wales;
4)notwithstanding the outcome of the requests for recognition, work with the branches representing members working for private contractors to submit annual pay claims for these members;
5)seek to co-ordinate the pay claims for members working for the private sector with the PSC pay claim where possible;
6)provide a report to the 2016 Service Group Conference on the outcome of this work programme.