Angry police back the right to strike

By Michael Holden

BOURNEMOUTH (Reuters) - Front-line police officers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of seeking the right to strike, angered by the government's failure to backdate last year's pay rise.

Tuesday's unprecedented announcement is an embarrassment for Gordon Brown coming just two days before the Crewe and Nantwich by-election which polls predict Labour is likely to lose.

The police row erupted in December when Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that a 2.5 percent pay rise, agreed by an independent tribunal, would not be backdated to September as expected.

The government said the decision was made to keep a lid on public spending and that the award was in line with other public sector increases.

But it left officers seething. They argued the rise was effectively only worth 1.9 percent and that Smith's decision was the first time a home secretary had failed to ratify their arbitration award in full.

Police said they suspected they were being picked on as they did not have the right to strike, prompting about 20,000 off-duty officers to march through London in the biggest police protest ever staged in Britain.

Meanwhile the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, balloted its 140,000 members on whether it should lobby for "full industrial rights".

Of the 60,572 officers who replied to the ballot, 86 percent supported this action, Jan Berry, the Federation chairman announced on Tuesday.