GMB Southern – which is representing Cityclean employees that provide the city’s recycling, rubbish and street cleaning facilities – called off the action planned for July 29 to August 6.
The agreement was made through the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration (ACAS) process and ratified at a meeting yesterday of the council’s Policy, Resources & Growth (Urgency) Sub-Committee on Wednesday (July 24).
“In good faith”
Mark Turner, branch secretary for GMB Sussex, said the agreement between the council and the union had been made “in good faith” and was welcomed by staff at the Cityclean depot.
He added: “There are still a number of worrying and serious issues in need of addressing, and I’m sure the Brighton & Hove City Councils management team will think so as well.
“However, with both further meetings over the coming weeks planned and the commencement of the agreed independent review we hope that matters might now take a turn for the better and flush out those opposed to a good industrial relationship within the paid service with regard to the GMB union.”
Brighton and Hove city council also said it hoped to continue discussions with GMB.
A council spokesperson said: “We welcome the GMB’s decision to suspend strike action and are pleased there will be no disruption to the clean-up of rubbish during and after Pride.
“We look forward to continuing the discussions about improving our relationship with GMB.”
Dispute
The dispute between GMB and Brighton and Hove city council had centred on what the union described as “the continued unfair exclusion” of a GMB representative from his place of work at the Hollingdean Cityclean Depot.
The planned series of one day strikes and the ban on overtime would have affected 120,000 households and coincided with Brighton’s Pride celebrations.
The event sees thousands of visitors descend on the city and is a huge clean up challenge for the local authority – it was reported that 100,000 tonnes of waste were collected by the council after Pride last year.
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