We are pleased that we have reached a settlement, which our team is happy with.
David Foster, SITA UK
The city's waste collection contractor SITA UK announced last night that the city's street cleaners, refuse loaders and drivers have voted to accept a 3% pay rise, after rejecting an original offer of 2.5%.
The move means that strikes planned for a 48 hour period from Monday February 4 and 72 hours from Monday February 11 will not go ahead (see letsrecycle.com story).
Speaking last night, SITA UK expressed its relief that the offer, which it described as “fair”, had been accepted.
David Foster, operations director at SITA UK, said: “We are pleased that we have reached a settlement, which our team is happy with. We are also pleased that there will be no disruption to refuse collections and street cleaning in Bristol.”
Bristol city council was also pleased that its waste collection service – which includes the UK's first major city-wide food waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story) – would not be affected.
A spokeswoman said: “We welcome the news that SITA have been able to reach agreement with their staff and avoid any strike action. This will enable us to continue delivering our innovative weekly waste and recycling collection services to residents and maintain our performance as the top performing UK city for recycling.
In Bristol, food waste and dry recyclables are collected every week by SITA alongside an optional green waste collection service. Residual rubbish is collected every fortnight. SITA's current collection contract runs until 2011. In 2006/07, the council reported a 31.9% recycling rate for household waste.
A statement on Bristol council's website confirmed: “All collections will be carried out as normal.”
Register for free to comment