Since the release of the Force’s insulting EB pay offer, your Association has been swamped with correspondence from members expressing their disappointment.

They are understandably upset that the offer being made to them, if realised, will make them the poorest paid police force in the country.

Adding injury to insult is that this paltry pay offer is conditional on a host of trade-offs that will erode working conditions for our members – conditions that have taken decades to fight for.

It is our intention to detail these trade-offs in this and in coming editions of InBrief, so that members are left in no doubt as to what Force Command really think of our 11,000 hardworking members.

The most outrageous trade-off being sought by your employer, in return for making you the worst paid police in the country, is to re-claim unfettered ‘flexibility’ in the way it can deploy you. This will involve scrapping hard-won industrial provisions which currently safeguard members in this regard.

Let’s see this for what it is – nothing more than an underhanded attempt to band-aid severe resourcing shortages.

If the Force gets its way, it will be free to do what is currently not possible under existing industrial agreements; This includes;

·         CIU members or prosecutors filling holes to cover van patrols

·         SOCAU members deployed to perform TMU duty

·         Members re-deployed at a whim across divisions or regions regardless of distance

·         General duties members covering absences in Neighbourhood Watch offices

The Force is well advised to put the pinch on criminals, not its own members.

Members can be assured that the Association will do all it can to resist these draconian trade-offs and work hard to negotiate the best possible EB outcome.