Working and living conditions in correctional services in Europe: collective bargaining issues (3 days)
652.24.ECB

Course report

The contents of the seminar

35 trade union delegates organising workers in prison (related) services from 13 European countries and representatives from Penal Reform International and the Council of Europe met in Prague on 9-12 December 2006. They discussed common trends, challenges, priority demands. They agreed a number of future action points at national and European levels to strengthen cooperation between EPSU affiliates, improve working and living conditions in Europe’s prisons and support sound alternatives to imprisonment.

Mrs Alena Vondrova, Trade Union of State Bodies and Institutions (CMKOS), welcomed the participants to Prague and the seminar.

Jean-Claude Le Douaron from the Education department of the European Trade Union institute introduced the programme and the practical arrangements around the Seminar. Nadja Salson and Tamara Goosen from EPSU explained the objectives of the seminar:

• To examine trends in working conditions and trade union rights of prison staff including prison wardens/officers, as well as social, educational and probation workers
• To discuss collective bargaining systems and role of social dialogue in improving prison staff’s working conditions
• To discuss trade union response to prison reforms and effects on working conditions, collective bargaining structures and trade union rights
• To assess implementation of EU social and equality directives in prison and correctional services

EU agenda on public services, social dialogue, workers’ rights and Prison services

Nadja Salson and Tamara Goosen introduced the EU agenda on public services, social dialogue, workers' rights and Prison services. The role of EPSU in this context is to defend public services in a context where deregulation, privatisation, sub-contracting and outsourcing seem to be a priority for both national governments and EU institutions. Download their presentation from the Seminar documents section of this Home Page.

The state of play of prison work and trade union activities in the Netherlands

Jan Willem Dieten from the Dutch trade union ABVAKABO, described the situation in the prison sector in the Netherlands. The main trends seem to fit with practices in other EU countries:

• Do more with less money
• More detainees per cell
• Decreasing staff density
• Increasing detention time
• Not enough resources to re-socialize detainees

Download his presentation from the Seminar documents section of this Home Page.

In working groups the participants tried to identify the common trends in the sector by answering the following questions:

• What are the main trends in prison services (including detention centres), in terms of prison population, staff, and public expenditure?
• What have been the most recent changes in prison service organisation in your country?
• What are the main changes in pay, other working conditions and trade union rights?
• Please, give the three most important trade union demands in the prison sector?
• What is the strategy of your union to achieve these demands?

Key trends in prison services

• increase of prison population due to tougher sentencing regimes and criminalization of migrants ( legitimized by perceived popular pressure)
• increase of detainees with mental illness which raises question of legitimacy and capacity of prisons to deal with this group of population
• age of detainees varies according to countries:
• opposition to prison privatisation –except in France where semi-private prisons are no longer seen as shocking. Privatisation plans dropped in Estonia; Swedish and Danish governments tempted to privatize.
• public prison budget tends to decrease, exception in Belgium
• staff/inmate ratio is decreasing
• development of electronic tagging to relieve prison overcrowding
• positive initiatives towards integrated approach to prisons services: e.g. Czech republic joining up security and probation services to develop new systems of punishment ( partly driven by lack of funding to build new prisons); national offenders system including social and security staff in Scotland; social partnership approach in Scotland

Trends in Working conditions

• strong link between detainees conditions and working conditions: living conditions as an analytical tool for working conditions
• more controlling/surveillance tasks for prison staff
• inadequate initial training and vocational training; no career development strategies
• no real consideration of hardship
• sense of isolation
• overall worse pay conditions than in other public services - low wage is a key issue in Albania (200 Euros compared to 500 Euros in police forces and in defence as comparators; as well as in Estonia despite recent 20% pay increase (from 200 to 240 €) .
• differences between uniformed and non-uniformed staff : eg Czech rep. Former are better off than latter
• Health care workers have better conditions due to better overall collective bargaining framework e.g UK NHS provides better conditions
• Weakening of civil service status

Trade union demands

• more staff
• to improve recruitment qualification and training as a tool for social mobility
• to maintain or improve terms and conditions
• to oppose two-tier workforce
• to keep civil service status or at least common employment conditions?
• to improve pay also through equal pay strategies e.g. healthcare and prison officers in UK/ uniformed and no-uniformed staff
• to improve “ mental environment” e.g. stress and other psychological traumas: more dangerous to work in prisons than to be a soldier
• better management
• to improve trade union rights e.g. right to strike and to collective bargaining

Trade union strategies

• More offensive trade union actions to be foreseen
• More forward looking agenda on role of prisons and alternatives
• Social partnership and integrated approach ( social +surveillance staff)
• Use of Council of Europe’s prison standards
• Lobbying of politicians (successful in Belgium)

Working conditions and overview on private and semi-private prisons

Stephen Nathan, PSIRU, explained the trends and consequences of privatisation through Public Private Partnership promoted by large MNCs as VINCI, SKANSKA, DEXIA, etc...

Privatisation is a threat to jobs. It implies as we can se in Scottish prisons where the staff has been cut by 10%. Many governments are considering privatisation quite often through contracting out or outsourcing of activities. The French Cour des Comptes, the audit organisation of the French government has emphasised that not reliable data show that private management of detention facilities is cheaper or more effective in the long run. MNCs are lobbying in order to obtain privatisation of immigration detention centers, juvenile detention centers and other detention facilities. Profits are reached by forcing private sector staff to work more and earn less than public sector staff. Private companies tend to rely heavily on technology and to neglect social aspects of detention conditions. Download the report from the Seminar documents section.

Detention conditions, reinsertion and alternatives to imprisonment

Christine Joffre, UGSP-CGT, summarized the findings of the "Etats Généraux" of prisons in France.

Mr Zdenek Hayek, from the Prague office of the Council of Europe's Torture Prevention Committee explained the role and the influence of this organisation. The committee has free access and the right to visit prisons. In some of the establishments visited, hygiene is a real problem, cells are overcrowded, violence and contagious diseases are frequent. Understaffing in cases of accidents or fire can carry huge consequences, which can't be compensated by means of technological surveillance.

Victoria Sergeyeva, from Pena Reform International presented an overview of prison reforms in Central and Eastern Europe.

Conclusions: EPSU ACTION PLAN FOR PRISON SERVICES

Introduction
There are many reasons why we need to coordinate trade union work in prisons at European level:

• Common trends and concerns in Europe’s prisons
• Impact of EU social legislation, EU Charter of Fundamental rights and EU liberalisation agenda of public services e.g. Public-Private Partnerships; pending initiatives on concessions and in the area of social and health services; Services directive)
• Impact of Council of Europe’s prison rules

Common trends & challenges :

• Increasing prison population due to tougher sentencing regimes and criminalization of new groups of the population, e.g. undocumented migrants (also growth of detention/removal centres with living conditions often even below “regular” prison standards)
• Prison overcrowding is a key issue in many countries which impacts on the quality of working and living conditions in prison services
• Increase of detainees with mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction
• Poor health and safety in many countries including contagious diseases ( HIV; TB; Hepatitis);
• Lack of resources and/or budget priorities go to jail rather than treatment
• Increased risks of privatisation
• Negative image of prison work, and often lower working conditions compared to other public services
• Isolation of prison officers, lack of management support, lack of training, violent work environment (between staff, between staff and prisoners, and among prisoners), high rate of absenteeism, in some cases shorter life expectancy (e.g. 57 in the UK),
• Isolation of detainees, lack of compliance with human rights and needs
• Growing number and influence of prisoners/human rights and penal reform organisations – opportunities for cooperation

Policy principles

• Social justice and respect of human rights should be central to the criminal justice system.
• Integrated offenders’ programmes should be encouraged: social, health care, probation & security staff need to team up; this implies also further trade union cooperation between different services involved in prisons
• Stop the increase of prison population as a matter of emergency- Imprisonment is the last resort measure and priority should be on crime prevention and social rehabilitation
• Responsibility for prison services should lie with the state, preferably with justice ministry, with due recognition of the rehabilitation objectives of prisons in terms of ministerial cooperation and checks and balances.
• Decency agenda for both prison workers and prisoners: improving working conditions and living conditions is mutually beneficial
• Prison workers should be entitled to decent pay, terms of employment, training, and a safe and healthy work environment
• Common collective bargaining framework for prison workers
• Trade union rights should be fully recognized and complied with (linked to “demilitarising” prison services in some countries);
• Detention conditions should, at least, respect Council of Europe’s prison rules

What can we do as EPSU?

1. Raising awareness on shared agenda on prisons and developing European standards on training and ethics through:

• Using existing EPSU networks, e.g. national administration, health and social services, national coordinators of EPSU quality public services-quality of life campaign, collective bargaining (EPSUCOB@), and training workshops such as on organising workers in trade unions;
• EU social dialogue at sectoral and cross-sectoral levels (e.g. ongoing negotiations on violence at work)
• Consulting and feeding into the ETUI/REHS-EPSU prison network webpage; enclosing workshop report; background research; policy statement; news updates; EPSU network contact list; good practices (e.g Nordic ethical prison standards; UK and Czech integrated offenders’ programme …).
• Disseminating workshop discussions in national trade unions;
• Developing bilateral, cross-border trade union activities (e.g plans to organise a meeting between Czech, Austrian and German colleagues; between RCN and POA-Scotland in the UK) and, please, reporting back to EPSU
• Organising awareness raising activities e.g. a European Action day on prison services (with focus on overcrowding/better services);

2. Challenging privatisation and liberalisation at EU and national level through

• Factual research on negative effects and companies’ strategies towards governments through mainly Prison Privatisation Report International www.psiru.org/justice, to organise specific meetings on this issue e.g. visit of Stephen Nathan in Estonia
• Establishing performance evaluation criteria
• Campaigning for exemption of prison services from EC competition rules

3. Organising an EPSU prison network meeting before 2009. An evaluation of the implementation of the action plan will be carried out second half of 2008

Follow-up

EPSU will send the workshop report to participants, list of participants and questionnaire on trade union density. Report and adoption of action plan by HSS and NEA standing committees on 27 March 2007 and 16 April 2007 respectively and Executive committee on 4 June 2007.

Checklist of EPSU key demands for

Better working conditions of prison staff

• Fewer prisoners and more resources in crime prevention and social rehabilitation of offenders
• Improved health and safety standards ( both physical and mental)
• minimum staff/detainee ratio to carry out the work
• improved initial recruitment training and vocational training, lifelong learning, conflict prevention training (deescalating skills)
• Discrimination-free work place and gender balanced prison staff
• maximum working time (incl. on-call duties)
• clearer managerial responsibilities
• civil-service status, common framework on terms of employment
• more opportunities for occupational mobility and social mobility
• full exercise of trade-union rights

Better living conditions of detainees

• Fewer prisoners and more resources in crime prevention and social rehabilitation of offenders
• Sufficient attention and resources for basic needs (food, hygiene, security, proximity to family and friends)
• Right to training, education, a healthy environment, meaningful activities to prepare rehabilitation
• Privacy- single clean cells
• Suicide prevention
• Right to living income
• Freedom of speech and right to set up prisoners’ councils in prisons

Better criminal justice systems

• Many concerns related to working and living conditions in prison services require improvements or reforms of criminal justice systems
• Well-resourced alternatives to imprisonment
• Maximum time-limits on pre-trial detention period
• Specific measures for young offenders
• Independent inspection prison authority (including consultation of prison trade unions)
• Evaluation of both public and private prisons’ performance in terms of recidivism rate, social rehabilitation, working and living conditions
• Better integration of different prison objectives and coherence of different social, economic and home and justice policies affecting prison regimes.

This site was last updated 12/18/06