A deal was reached late last night (August 29) at a meeting between Resourcesaver and Unison which saw the organisation agree to the standard 40-hour working week that the workforce was looking for.
Last night’s agreement follows a series of meetings which have taken place between Resourcesaver and the union over the last month to try and resolve the situation which arose when the workforce balloted for industrial action. The union was planning to strike on Monday if its demands for overtime pay or time in lieu for excess hours were not met.
SITA sub-contracts its recycling service in Bristol to Resourcesaver but when SITA signed a new £75 million seven-year contract to carry out waste management and recycling services for the city in May, Resourcesaver said that due to the dispute over working hours it was unable to sign the contract. The union said that this put the city’s black box scheme “at risk”.
Chris Howe, of Unison, said: “We held a lengthy meeting last night when Resourcesaver conceded to our demands. We are very pleased with the outcome which will see the workforce having fair working conditions. There will not be a strike next week as was originally planned. Now, the agreement has to be officially finalised and put to the members which should take place tomorrow.”
Negotiations
Charlie McCaulder, general manager of Resourcesaver, said: “We were negotiating last night until 11.30. The strike is off and we understand that the workers are very happy.”
Mr Howe added that he thought that pressure from SITA had seen Resourcesaver concede and said: “Our members stayed firm would have gone on strike if demands hadn’t have been granted.”
A spokeswoman for SITA, Nicola Dowlen said: “We understand that the dispute has been resolved but SITA has had no involvement in the negotiations. As Resourcesaver is our sub-contractor we had made contingency plans to ensure that the service was continued for our client.”
Resourcesaver has yet to sign a new contract with SITA and is currently operating under a temporary extension to the old contract. But Mr McCaulder said that as the dispute was only resolved yesterday it was too early to talk about a new contract.
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