Involving Members In The Ballot For Industrial Rights

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The Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation is talking to teams across the force about the pros and cons of industrial rights, ahead of a PFEW ballot next year.

The Police Federation of England and Wales will be balloting the membership on pursuing industrial rights, it was announced at the Annual Conference in October. In 2021, PFEW withdrew from the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB), with National General Secretary Gemma Fox saying: “We do not have confidence in a system that is supposed to be impartial and independent, and recognising the position policing is in.”

Unlike other public-sector workers, police officers are currently unable to strike or have any form of industrial rights, which think tank Social Market Foundation (SMF) says is likely to have negatively impacted police pay.

South Yorkshire Police Federation was an early advocate of balloting members over industrial rights, says its Chair Steve Kent: “Waving our flag, South Yorkshire Police Federation has been at the forefront of this since the very beginning. We were in the minority by coming out and saying, ‘We need to do this’.

“We’re expecting this ballot to be in the spring. There is a national working group that I’m proud to be part of.”

Steve continued: “I have asked pretty much all the Inspectors in the force to give me some dates to come and speak to their teams. I’ve done a high number of talks already, close to 30, going out to speak to officers, and I will keep doing that as a rolling, refreshing thing over the coming months.

“I would like to continue to appeal to other Federation Chairs across the country to go out and speak to cops, because when you explain the pros and cons they get it, and they get the need to involve themselves in this, whether it’s voting yes or no.

“When you go into the room they say, ‘It doesn’t make any difference to us, we’re not going to get the right to strike anyway’. Well no, it’s not about that. There’s a far bigger picture to this and when you’ve finished explaining to them, they’re engaged with it.”