Around 600 staff at 49 prisons across England are set to strike tomorrow in a long running health and safety dispute with employer Novus.

The strike will be the fourth time the 600 staff members, represented by the University and College Union (UCU), have walked out in the past two months. 

UCU says the dispute is over the failure to address health and safety concerns raised by prison educators, a failure to meaningfully engage with UCU on the part of Novus, and repeated attempts by management to intimidate staff who had raised health and safety issues. 

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UCU says it has received reports from members that new and inexperienced Novus staff have been sent onto wings without any personal protection training; that staff have been asked to visit multiple residential units, negating attempts to create workplace bubbles; and that learners have come into class vaping.

Novus is the biggest prison education employer in the UK and is owned by LTE Group.

UCU: ‘Both the learner and the educator must be kept safe’

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “For Novus to end this dispute all it needs to do is take staff safety concerns seriously and withdraw the unfair and spurious investigations it has launched against our health and safety representatives. Our members are hugely passionate about educating those inside prisons, but both the learner and the educator must be kept safe. Every other employer has been able to engage with the safety requests of staff, it’s time Novus did too.”

In January, UCU wrote to all English prison education employers requesting changes to education delivery to keep staff and learners safe. The union says every employer apart from Novus responded positively to the union’s requests. 

UCU adds that Novus refused to properly engage with UCU over these requests, continuously declining to meet employees who UCU members have elected as their health and safety representatives. 

Novus employee and safety representative Brian Hamilton said: “Continuous industrial action on this scale by prison educators is unprecedented and reflects the anger staff feel about the lack of care Novus has for our safety. 

“At the height of the second wave, we asked to meet with management to discuss how we could adapt teaching to keep both educators and learners safe from Covid. Yet managers have refused to deal with our concerns in good faith, and responded by using spurious investigations to intimidate us. Six months on, colleagues continue to report serious Covid health and safety issues like the breakdown of workplace bubbles, a lack of personal protection training, and learners vaping in class. We will not let Novus continue to treat us in this way. This is now the fourth day of strike action and we are absolutely prepared to take further industrial action to protect our colleagues and learners.”

Mark Fairhurst, national chair of the POA, which represents over 30k prison, correctional and secure psychiatric workers, said: “Prison officers stand with Novus employees fighting for their health and safety. Novus should be ashamed that staff have been forced into a position where they have to go on strike to protect themselves. It now needs to resolve the dispute rather than causing further disruption for learners and prison officers.”

A LTE spokesperson said: “Our commitment to the health and safety of our colleagues and learners has always been our top priority and we are disappointed that despite our best efforts to resolve the dispute, industrial action by UCU continues.

“All health and safety concerns raised by colleagues are regularly reviewed and investigated and appropriate action is taken by the Group Health and Safety Managers. These issues are regularly discussed with union members in a recurring health and safety meeting. Unfortunately, despite an open invitation to join these meetings, UCU have not attended since January this year. This has materially impacted our ability to have an open dialogue with UCU on health and safety matters.

“Throughout previous industrial action there has been minimal impact to our service across all our establishments with over 90 per cent of Novus colleagues working as usual. We have continued to maintain access to education for our learners at all times and have been able to deliver our usual high standard of education to the men, women and children we support.

“We remain open to discussions with UCU.”