05.09.2007

The turn of the screws

Jim Moody comments on last week's strike of the Prison Officers' Association and asks: Are prison officers state agents or workers in uniform?

Last week members of the Prison Officers' Association struck for a day in support of their pay demand. Although labelled a 'wildcat' action because it was an unlawful strike under the anti-union laws, neither the prison officers nor their union have faced legal action or sequestration.

Although the Brown government obtained a court injunction against the POA, no-one obeyed it. But, as the union's action was over in a day, no doubt the government decided that discretion was the better part of valour and let it pass without further legal moves.

This is probably well-judged. The government is well aware that breaking the POA would have meant bringing the army in "¦ and it is already suffering from overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the relevant ministers are more than aware that the POA was not seeking to spark a general revolt on public sector pay.

While the one-day strike by prison officers appears to have been pretty solid, with the union claiming 90% of its 35,000 members were out, there was some initial lack of communication. It seems that secrecy over the timing and the lightning nature of the strike certainly took some prison officers by surprise: in London, Wormwood Scrubs was out by 8am, but it took until lunchtime for fellow officers in Pentonville to join them. The fact that government was refusing to honour an arbitration agreement to award what was anyway a minimal percentage increase was incendiary and almost inevitably led to such readiness to walk out.

Clearly the POA has a left-leaning leadership. Back in March last year, POA general secretary Brian Caton was one of the few union leaders to send a message of support to the conference held by the Socialist Party front, the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. Interviewed just before the conference, Caton had said: "I've been a member of the Labour Party all my adult life ... But I think it's essential that we send a very clear message to New Labour that the labour movement has now rejected their policies and philosophy.

"On a personal note, I'll look with great interest at any party formed that will represent working class people and has the aim of ensuring working class people are fully represented in a fair and proper system. We will be looking constructively at any declaration about a new workers' party. I'll read it and discuss it with those on the left in my union ... Capitalism is wrong, it's unfair and it leads to an uncivil society. I don't want to live in an uncivil society where greed is the master and crime becomes the norm" (The Socialist March 16 2006).

In May 2007, the POA annual conference was addressed by John McDonnell and Tony Benn (they were 'balanced' on the right by David Davis and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' shadow home secretary). More recently, Caton signed up to support the Morning Star-sponsored Politics After Blair conference held on June 16.

Obviously Caton was not elected in a vacuum. There is a distinct left in the POA; possibly strengthened by the recruitment of a significant tranche of former miners, as pits closed over the last 20 years.

In fact, militancy among unionised prison workers has a long history. The POA traces its origins to the Prison Officers' Federation, which affiliated to the Labour Party in 1916. Soon after it was established, the POF joined with members of the police to form the Police and Prison Officers' Union. However, immediately after the 1919 police strike that caused such consternation within the UK state, police and prison workers were prohibited by law from joining trade unions. Only after two decades of campaigning did prison workers win back the right to organise, though it remained illegal for them to strike.

Although legislation introduced in 1992 under the Tories aimed to destroy the POA as a trade union, this was reversed by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994. But it was only in 2004 that prison officers in the public sector regained the right to strike; however, this position was only negotiated in exchange for the union's voluntary agreement not to exercise that right. Prison officers in Northern Ireland and the private sector continued to be prohibited from striking. It is this hobbling of the POA that its members gave a good kicking to by coming out on strike last week.

Communists are certainly in favour of prison workers and members of the police force having the right to form and join trade unions and having the right to strike. It is akin to our demand that members of the armed forces be given such rights.

One big proviso, however, relates to the contradictory position prison officers hold: on the one hand, they are exploited workers; on the other, they are direct agents of state repression.

We cannot by any means always endorse every trade union action that they take. There are many demands that they might make - such as those that would improve their own conditions at the expense of prisoners' rights - which we would never support and would in fact argue should be actively fought against by the trade union movement as a whole. Eg, Colin Moses, the POA's national chair, counters complaints about the violation of the "human rights" of prisoners with his own complaint about the violation of the "human rights" of POA members (http://www.poauk.org.uk/comments_nc.htm). Specifically, they are not allowed to exercise their right to strike against a below-inflation pay award.

We do not make light of the rights of POA members. Nor, however, do we make light of the rights of prisoners. Crime and those who commit it can only be understood in relation to society. In class society, crime is a product of alienation, want or resistance. And under capitalism the criminal justice system is anti-working class, anti-popular and undemocratic to the core. This is why we make the demands that we do on the question of crime and prison in our Draft programme (section 3.15: www.cpgb.org.uk/documents/cpgb/prog_deman ds.html#3_15).

Our Draft programme (which is currently being discussed with a view to redrafting) already includes a whole raft of basic demands on prison. Such questions as workers' supervision of prisons; provision of the maximum opportunity for prisoners to develop themselves as human beings; and prison life being made as near normal as possible are not small matters. We consider that the aim of prison should be rehabilitation, not punishment; within prisons there should be a wide range of cultural facilities; and so on.

Caton and the left in the POA leadership do not adequately address such key questions. There is talk about the inequalities of capitalist society. However, the POA is in practice more concerned about sectional issues from pay to keeping prisoners safely locked up and under control. Overcrowding and lack of resources mean that those put in charge over the prison population - prison officers - often become stressed, demoralised and sometimes violent. The system dehumanises jailed and jailer alike.

While Marxists can only but approve of prison officers and other workers in uniform trying to assert themselves as workers by organising in trade unions and striking, we never lose sight of the reality of the state's institutions of repression of which they are part.