contrary to an agreement between the prison officer association had voluntarily signed, called the jirpa. please don't ask me what the acronym stands for, because i can't remember. they had voluntarily signed in return for the statutory bar on industrial action being taken from the statute book. now, they broke that agreement and also had given notice that they were going to terminate it in any event. the date of termination was the 8th of may. so absolute imperative, whatever else happened, was that i got this bill through both houses and into royal assent by the 8th of may. because we knew any way, given the state of mind of the leaders of the poa that they would go on -- almost certainly go on strike the next day and it would be a disaster. so i'm afraid other things became subordinate to it. so that's life, that's politics. so what was in my mind at this stage was that i might have to withdraw the whole provisions to increase the penalty for this legislation and then find another bill to put it in in the following session. so that was what was going on there. >> at a convenient momen

completely contrary to agreement which the prison authorization had vol industry signed called the jirpa -- please doesn't ask me what the acronym stands for because i don't remember -- that they had signed in return for the statutory bar action being taken from the statute book. now, they broke that agreement and had given notice at that they were going to terminate it in any event and the date of termination was the 8th of may. the absolute imperative was that i got this bill through both houses and into royal ascent by the 8th of may because we knew anyway given the state of mind of them they would go on strike the next day. that's life, that's politics. what in my mind at this stage was i might have to withdraw the whole provisions to increase the penalty for this legislation and then find another bill to put it in in the following session. so that's what was going on there. >> we'll take a few moments to take a break. >> all rise. >>> here's a look at what's coming up live today on the c-span networks. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, former supreme court justice john paul stevens speaks at th