Prison officers walkout called off after talks with government

The Guardian, UK: A protest by prison staff over violence and safety fears has been called off after talks with the government.
Early on yesterday morning the Prison Officers Association ordered its 20,000 members working in English and Welsh prisons to protest outside their workplaces “until instructed otherwise”.
The union has called off the walkout following a meeting with the prisons minister, Rory Stewart. POA’s general secretary, Steve Gillan, said: “We have reached an agreement with Rory Stewart. They [the government] will discontinue the application for an injunction against the union.”
Staff demonstrating were told to go back to work by 1pm, he said. The union will hold further talks with the prison service on Monday.
Gillan added: “I’m pleased with the outcome. Well, in actual fact I’m saddened we had to do it in the first place. But now we hope for meaningful, constructive dialogue commencing on Monday.”
The 7am call for a walkout came less than a day after the chief inspector of prisons, Peter Clarke, took emergency action over dire conditions at HMP Bedford.
The prisons minister Rory Stewart had said the walkout was illegal and irresponsible, and urged officers to return to work. The Ministry of Justice said it would seek an injunction to bring the action to an end.
By lunchtime the ministry confirmed the action had been called off.
Earlier Gillan said officers had the right to walk out under health and safety legislation. “The government and employer have a duty of care toward my members, and I’m fed up of hearing of my members receiving smashed eye sockets, broken arms, broken legs, broken jaws, being attacked, spat on, having excrement and urine thrown at them, and enough is enough now.
“We need ministers to start taking control of what’s going on.”
Images posted on social media showed walkouts at prisons across the country, including Manchester, Holme House in Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Wymott in Lancashire, Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey, the Isle of Man and Low Newton in County Durham.
Bedford is the fourth prison to be subject to the urgent notification protocol after Exeter, Nottingham and Birmingham, which was temporarily taken from its private operator, G4S, and returned to state control.
The POA said its members were facing “unprecedented levels of violence” in a crisis it blamed on government cuts.
Gillan accused ministers of “paying lip service to the health and safety of my members” and breaking safety commitments to prison staff.
“We will now be demanding that the government provide safe prisons, meet our demands to improve personal protective equipment, [and] reduce levels of violence and overcrowding as set out by Lord Justice Woolf in his report into the riots of 1990.”
The shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, said he backed the walkout. “Conservative cuts to prison budgets and staffing levels have led to violence spiralling out of control in our prisons. Prison staff all too often pay the price, with assaults on officers doubling since Tory cuts started to bite.”
He called on the government to take urgent action to guarantee the safety of prison staff.
“To stabilise our prisons, the government needs to launch an emergency plan with substantial new funds to end understaffing and overcrowding across the prison estate.”
Clarke invoked the urgent notification protocol for Bedford prison after inspectors found high levels of violence and inexperienced staff struggling to maintain control. He said standards had been declining unchecked for nine years.
The protocol requires the justice secretary, David Gauke, to draw up an action plan for Bedford within 28 days to turn the prison around.
Stewart said: “Prison officers do vital and important work and we urge them to return to their duty stations, in line with their obligations to the law and the prison service.
“It’s irresponsible for the POA to encourage their members to take this illegal action. We are deploying our contingency plans but, by not turning up for work, these prison officers are putting their fellow staff and inmates at risk.
“Yesterday we doubled the prison sentence for anyone who assaults prison officers. We’ve also increased pay, provided tools such as body-worn cameras to increase security on the landings, and are investing £40m to improve the estate and tackle the drugs problem which is fuelling much of the violence. And we’ve now got 3,500 new officers to help ease the burden.
“We are taking the action that needs to be taken.”