This week I’ve been at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth presenting the results of a survey that my University spin-off company Robertson Cooper administered to Inspectors and Chief Inspectors in England and Wales. The Police Federation is the staff association that represents rank and file officers in all 43 police forces in England and Wales – that’s the majority of serving police officers so its views carry some weight!
Much of the debate at the conference centred on police officers’ right to take strike action. In this country this is a right that they don’t currently possess because of the critical role that the police play in upholding law and order. This is something that has been taken for granted for many years, but now that we have entered more uncertain economic times where strike action is becoming more commonplace (see my earlier post on the Oil Workers strike things are changing. This situation for police officers was exacerbated by the Home Secretary’s refusal to grant police officers a pay rise for which they had been lobbying earlier in the year.
All this got me thinking about the psychological side of strike action and what having the right take it is really about for police officers. The conclusion that I came to was that it’s about feeling in control. Police officers have to deal with some of the most difficult, dangerous and stressful situations that you can imagine – where often they can not control what will happen next. Having the right to feed back to their employers about their working conditions through political lobbying alone is just not going to feel like it’s enough – particularly when all other sectors have the right to strike. Entering a protracted process of negotiation (where someone that they don’t know and have never met is representing them) is hardly likely to give officers the sense that they are in control of your own destiny. In this sense, it’s easy to see why having the right to withdraw their services in extreme circumstances may provide a powerful means of taking control. In many ways, it’s the ultimate form of feedback to the organisation!
I’m not saying that police officers definitely should have the right to strike – there are clearly issues of national security and the need to uphold the law to consider. But equally, not having the right when the rest of the UK workforce does have it fundamentally affects the psychological contract between officers and their employers. As always, I’d welcome your views.
Considering your point brings to mind how it feels to be powerless in an organisation. Putting the right to strike at the top of an agenda indicates that the infrastructures to allow influence and communication to take place are not effective. Getting the right to strike does not deal with the heart of the problem.
But when all else fails, it’s about the only thing that you can do to feel as though you’re being heard…that or publish your views and hope you find like-minded readers. Anarchy is about the only thing that many law abiding and law keeping people think is left to them as they’ve been so dispempowered by politics and materialism /short term political decisions.