SITA will pay the council 3 million in compensation for ending its five-year contract after only 18 months as part of an agreement which was reached yesterday after two days of discussions.
Under the deal, the 130 binmen who were sacked on Monday for striking in support of their colleagues, have all been reinstated and will continue to work for SITA for the next three months until a new contractor is found. Talks with a number of contractors are believed to have already taken place.
And the binmen were back at work today with 16 refuse trucks sent out this morning. But SITA is being closely supervised by the council with some council officers being based at the depot to ensure that there are no confrontations over the next three months.
The council believes that it has achieved “the best deal possible” as it was felt that SITA had delivered a poor quality service with no possibility of improvement.
Leader of the Council Ken Bodfish said: “We wanted to end this relationship as quickly as possible. The refuse collection and street cleaning service the residents of our city have been receiving from this company has been appalling and the sooner we can get someone in to do the job properly, the better. The compensation will help the council meet the costs of what is expected to be a much costlier service.”
He added: “The sacked staff will be reinstated as part of this agreement and we expect them to play their part in providing a good service with the knowledge that their employment with SITA will soon be over.”
SITA claimed earlier in the week that it wanted to retain the service and was looking to recruit more staff, but the company was losing 300,000 a month on the contract.
A spokesman for SITA said: “We went into discussions to find a way forward and came to a satisfactory agreement. We have done all that we can do in Brighton.”
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