On the PASA lecture tour

Cops never get pay rises simply because they deserve them, so the Police Association exists chiefly to get more money into its members’ pockets. That was the stark opening message from association assistant secretary, Mark Carroll, on the final leg of his industrial lecture tour for 2004.

Before a group of aspiring detectives on a CIB course at Echunga last December, Mr Carroll said the association’s highly successful EA2004 had been about “paying cops what they’re worth”.

In his relaxed but up-front style, he asserted that the agreement – with its 18.9 per cent average wage rise – would have been virtually impossible without a representative body, such as the association.

“How would we (police) have got the EB result otherwise?” he asked rhetorically of his attentive audience.

During his hour-long talk, Mr Carroll attributed the successes of the association to its 99.6 per cent participation rate, from which, he said, came “a lot of clout”. “We guard jealously our membership rate,” he said after the lecture.

“We are very fortunate, as are most police unions across the country, that we have such a high density. It allows the association to have sufficient finances to run its points of view publicly.”

And those views, he told the CIB aspirants, were on such crucial issues as police staffing and employee retention.

Mr Carroll went on to discuss other aspects of EA2004, and some of the association’s recommendations to the Parliamentary Select Committee inquiring into the staffing, resourcing and efficiency of SAPOL.

Before the session wound up with an expression of gratitude to Mr Carroll, the course members asked a range of questions which all related to EA2004.

Although the association provides many talks, this final one for 2004 came as a first to a CIB course, and an addition to the traditional lectures to recruits at Fort Largs. The association now hopes to incorporate other new SAPOL workgroups into the tour.

Only two weeks before his Echunga talk, Mr Carroll – a veteran of the association lecture circuit – had addressed, and offered membership to, SAPOL’s 14 newest recruits on their second day on the job.

In their Fort Largs classroom, members of Course 62 listened closely to a comprehensive rundown on the association’s structure, history, purpose, key figures and services.

Mr Carroll presented compelling arguments for the recruits to sign up for association membership in virtually their first hours in the job. Equally as frank as he would be with the CIB course, he told his audience of cases in which recruits had had to show cause for SAPOL to allow them to graduate.

“We don’t scare them into membership, but we do explain the intricacies of their employment, and give a pretty frank assessment of what can occur,” said Mr Carroll.

“They might pass their exams but be deemed unworthy to become police officers. And because of their unique employment as police cadets, they have lesser rights. They can’t, if they’re dismissed unfairly, go anywhere.

“This might be an unfair dismissal that, potentially, can never be heard; but we have assisted people with this over the years.

“I just don’t want people to wake up and think: ‘Gee, I wish I was a member of the Police Association, because look at what’s happened to me’.”

Two recruits asked questions of Mr Carroll – one about the association’s legal defence, and another as to why around 20 out of 4,000-odd police officers remained non-union members.

He described their refusal to participate as ill-advised, and said it sometimes stemmed from unwarranted dissatisfaction with an earlier pay deal, religious beliefs or simple parsimony.

Non-members, he insisted, left themselves “highly vulnerable, through no representation, if things go horribly wrong”.

Invited at the end of the lecture to join the association, all 14 recruits signed on before Mr Carroll and membership officer, Sarah Stephens, left Fort Largs. Mr Carroll speculated that most simply wanted to be part of an organization to which, essentially, all of their colleagues belonged.

“They probably thought: ‘Well, if 99.6 per cent of almost 4,000 people are members of the Police Association, there must be good reason for that’,” he said. “I think that is so even if they don’t consciously understand it (the association) as yet, or the employment relationship.”

Mr Carroll told the Police Journal of his deep appreciation to SAPOL for allowing union access to association members in the workplace. He said the association had been lucky that SAPOL had given “good support” to the lecture tour.

“I think SAPOL has recognized, as has the government, the importance the Police Association is to the policing industry,” he said.

Mr Carroll, not enamoured with the e-mail system, described the face-to-face component of his lecture tour as invaluable. He said recruits needed to see “who and what you are, and what you’re about”.

He also said his in-person talks had given members the chance to offer their feedback.

“We can put lots of things in brochures – as we have done, and do – about things that are happening industrially,” he said. “But there’s nothing like sitting down and listening to people’s hopes, fears and frustrations to get the true impact from how they feel about their work.”