Police To Lobby For Right To Strike
May. 22nd, 2008 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awmperrySo, the police here in the UK - or perhaps just in England, I can't quite remember - have voted in favour of lobbying the government to change the law to allow them to strike. They haven't voted to strike, but they're trying to get the legal option to do so.
Which is fair, in one way; police officers are underpaid and underappreciated, and should get a hell of a lot more respect than they do. Indeed, I've given a lot of thought over the years to joining the constabulary.
But here's why giving the police - or any of the emergency services, really - the right to strike is a bad thing:
Their quarrel is with the government. Their "solution" - striking - affects the public, not the government.
A civilised and ordered society relies for law enforcement on a sort of covenant between police and public; the public don't take the law into their own hands on the understanding that the police will be there to protect them should they need it. We agree not to carry weapons for self-defence, because the police are only a phone call away. In theory.
But if the police decide to strike, then what? Okay, perhaps they decide to go on a limited strike so they'll still provide law enforcement but won't provide the peripheral services - festival crowd control, Clarkson Mk I Traffic Wombles, things like that. That's fine.
But if the law doesn't distinguish between that and a full strike, then the first time perhaps it will be a full strike. But what's to say that it'll stay that way? What if they instead vote to go on a full strike? If every police officer in Britain were to go off duty tomorrow morning, what would you do? What would happen around you? With law enforcement absent, what happens?
That's what annoys me. The police are being royally buggered over by the government, no question about it. The government have broken the deal between them and the police. But if they go on strike, the police are breaking the deal between them and us, the public.
We don't allow weapons for self-defence in Britain, nor do we allow concealed carry. In theory, we don't need them.
But if the police get the right to strike, I'm buying a gun.
Should be easy, with no police to raid that white van on the corner.
Which is fair, in one way; police officers are underpaid and underappreciated, and should get a hell of a lot more respect than they do. Indeed, I've given a lot of thought over the years to joining the constabulary.
But here's why giving the police - or any of the emergency services, really - the right to strike is a bad thing:
Their quarrel is with the government. Their "solution" - striking - affects the public, not the government.
A civilised and ordered society relies for law enforcement on a sort of covenant between police and public; the public don't take the law into their own hands on the understanding that the police will be there to protect them should they need it. We agree not to carry weapons for self-defence, because the police are only a phone call away. In theory.
But if the police decide to strike, then what? Okay, perhaps they decide to go on a limited strike so they'll still provide law enforcement but won't provide the peripheral services - festival crowd control, Clarkson Mk I Traffic Wombles, things like that. That's fine.
But if the law doesn't distinguish between that and a full strike, then the first time perhaps it will be a full strike. But what's to say that it'll stay that way? What if they instead vote to go on a full strike? If every police officer in Britain were to go off duty tomorrow morning, what would you do? What would happen around you? With law enforcement absent, what happens?
That's what annoys me. The police are being royally buggered over by the government, no question about it. The government have broken the deal between them and the police. But if they go on strike, the police are breaking the deal between them and us, the public.
We don't allow weapons for self-defence in Britain, nor do we allow concealed carry. In theory, we don't need them.
But if the police get the right to strike, I'm buying a gun.
Should be easy, with no police to raid that white van on the corner.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 10:57 pm (UTC)