They
offered me a job in a rehabilitation hostel for drug
offenders and alcoholics. But I just couldn't live on the wage. I was
living in a council house but I had one child and my wife was heavily
pregnant.
I
passed the entrance exams for the police, prison and fire
services. And because I'd been at Wandsworth prison as a potential
probation officer I thought I'd go there.
I
was a prison officer for 19 years from 1977. I started at
Wandsworth and then went to Wakefield.
I
was on the POA national executive, then in 1996 I left the
Prison Service to become an assistant secretary.
What
do you think about the privatisation of prisons?
Britain
is the current leader in the world in having private
prisons. In fact, per head of population, Wales is the world leader in
private prisons. All of these have been built in the last 20 years.
Most
of the companies involved with running prisons have got
very long contracts. The public sector was never allowed to bid for
them, the Tories just privatised them.
Justice
Minister Jack Straw said there would be a level
playing field for the running of prisons but then he said he's opening
private prisons that the public sector will not be allowed to bid for.
We
are not even allowed to bid for the transportation of
prisoners. Public servants used to do all of this work.
The
idea of Titan prisons - massive warehouses - was checked
fully and was scrapped. But many Category C prisons have already got
1,500 prisoners, as big as Titans.
Straw
is also pulling prisons together in clusters. The
biggest travesty for us concerns Blakenhurst prison in the midlands,
which we won back from the private sector.
Straw
clustered it with Hewell Grange and Brockhill prisons,
which were close to it. Now it's come up for retendering. So the other
two which have never been private are now involved in a compulsory
tender. He said he wouldn't do that, once again misleading the POA.
Birmingham,
one of the biggest prisons in the country, has
been named for potential privatisation. There is quite an active POA
branch there and they took action in August 2007. So the threat of
privatisation is Straw having a kick-back at us.
What
do you think of the government's 'modernisation' plans?
We're
not opposed to modernisation but the modernisation they
are putting forward is dangerous for prison staff, dangerous for
prisoners and dangerous for society.
We
had the biggest turnout in a ballot ever in our history
that rejected that modernisation. We're not allowed to take lawful
strike or industrial action, so we go to the negotiating table at a
disadvantage. They listen to what we say and then they ignore it.
We
rejected workforce 'modernisation' in a ballot and now
they're trying to impose it on us. This is alongside pushing forwards
this market testing and privatisation. So we are in conflict with them.
I've been fortunate
in having Colin Moses to work with. He's
one of the few elected black trade union leaders in the country. We're
both socialists and have very strong trade union beliefs. We both
believe in trade unions doing the job for the members.
How
do you deal with members of far-right organisations like
the BNP in the union?
We
have thrown BNP members out of the union, about six people.
We were able to get the Prison Service to say they would sack any
prison officers who were known to be members of far right
organisations. In order to achieve this we constantly bombarded the
Prison Service with the fact that we'd thrown people out for being
members of the BNP but they were keeping them employed as prison
officers. We got the Prison Service to make a declaration that if they
found anyone in those organisations they would sack them. This applies
to everyone who works in the Prison Service. This is part of a motion
at the TUC this year.
If
you get sacked for being in the BNP, if you're a POA member
we won't support you.
We
couldn't live with the thought of anyone with racist or
fascist leanings having a key with a black person behind the door. We
discussed it a lot and we decided to throw them out of the union. If we
find any more we will throw them out. It's in the union rules.
Why
did you leave the Labour Party?
I'm
sick and tired of people saying that just because you're a
prison officer you're right wing. I had three gold brooches for the
amount of prison officers I have recruited to the Labour Party. I'm sad
at having to leave the Labour Party but I couldn't stay in it with Jack
Straw being politically dishonest to me.
I
have respect for some Labour politicians and I have lots of
friends in the Labour Party. Lots of my executive are still members of
the Labour Party.
But
being the general secretary of a union means you get face
to face with people and you can ask questions that others can't. I
asked questions and got waffle when I expected to be treated with
respect and given honest answers.
I
left a meeting at our conference with Jack Straw and made a
presentation to him of a decanter from the POA to say thank you for
coming to the conference. I also gave him a book entitled The Right To
Strike and I said: "I've got you a third gift. You can have my Labour
Party card after being a Labour Party member for 40-odd years."
I
got a standing ovation.
He
asked me what I was going to do now politically. I said
I'll join the workers' party.
He
did say that his father had been locked up for being a
conscientious objector. I asked him what the founding fathers of the
Labour Party would think of him now - fighting illegal wars and
privatising prisons. I got a standing ovation for that as well.
What's
happening now in the Prison Service?
From
1 September they're bringing in prison officers at
£14,000 a year - £6,000 less than the proper rate. This
will mean conflict. We've taken them to arbitration but it's all on the
back of our members refusing the modernisation.
They
want to scrap the principal officer grade and run prisons
with people in suits. We're not up for modernisation if it means cost
cutting, cutting our wages and conditions, and the conditions for
prisoners.
If
prison officers can't rehabilitate, all they can do is
confine. That looks like what they really want us to do.
When
we send those prisoners back into society under those
circumstances, they will rape, rob and murder again. If we can't
attempt to rehabilitate them or tackle their mental health problems,
drug or alcohol problems then we're wasting our time sending them to
prison.
We've
said let's have an integrated system where prison
officers and probation officers work together. Where non-custodial
sentences deliver the same programmes as in the prisons but out in the
community. But we can't do that with overcrowded prisons, filling them
up with people who are mentally ill.
These
things are part of the POA's policies. We argued these
points with Labour in opposition. They said they would talk to us when
they got into power but 12 years later they haven't done anything.
Cameron's
lot will cause a massive increase in crime. They
will lock people up for longer, try to cut the prison budget and
privatise.
One
of the things about the day's strike that we took was that
we said: "You push us too far and we'll strike." No law will stop
working people saying I will withhold my labour.
My
members don't want to break laws but we don't want bad laws
either. I'll be arguing at the TUC that for any union to be able to
bargain properly with the employers, the union membership must be able
to withdraw their labour.
BPP
COMMENT: The Socialist Party is what's left of the English
grouping of
Trotskyist 'Militant Tendency' supporters expelled from Labour in the
late 1980s and led by former MP David Nellist, now a Coventry
councillor (or he was one). No outcry from the Capitalist media that a
Trot is running a trade union of course.
