Waste sector gears up for further strikes over pay

The strike threats came as Leeds city council, which has been hit by eight weeks of continuous strike action by its in-house collection crews, began advertising for temporary staff to relieve the refuse and recycling backlog.

Refuse workers in Brighton yesterday (October 29) voted “nearly unanimously” in an official ballot to take part in a series of strikes from November 9 and undertake minimum work, or 'work-to-rule', from November 5 as part of an ongoing dispute about pay.

GMB – the union which represents the council-employed refuse workers – claims the action is a response to council plans to alter pay structures, which it claims could leave refuse workers £8,000 worse off in pay cuts. GMB said workers voted 94% to 6% in favour of industrial action.

Rob Macey, GMB organiser said: “GMB members don't take this type of action lightly and we are conscious of the inconvenience it will bring to the residents of the city.

“We are also however confident that the public will support our members when they consider how they would react if they themselves were faced with pay cuts of up to £8,000 each through no fault of their own,” he added.

Responding to the proposed action, a Brighton council spokeswoman said: “We have had productive talks with the unions up to this point about how to fulfil this duty and we are disappointed the GMB has taken its members out on strike while the council is prepared to continue negotiations.

“There will, undoubtedly, be some disruption to rubbish collections over the days of the strike if it goes ahead and the week that follows but we will do our utmost to minimise any delays in collections.”

The council asked residents to remain patient during the discussion period and said it remained hopeful that talks with the GMB would resume.

Sheffield

The proposed Brighton action comes as representatives of refuse workers in Sheffield met with the city council's collection contractor Veolia Environmental Services this week (October 28) in a bid to avert strike action in the South Yorkshire city.

The workers – who are also represented by GMB – have threatened to walk out following claims some workers are receiving different wages for performing the same task.

A Veolia spokeswoman said: “We met with the GMB at ACAS on Wednesday October 28 to exchange views. The meeting has now been adjourned until Tuesday November 3, when we are hoping to resolve this issue.”

Sheffield city council and the GMB Sheffield representative were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

Leeds

The disputes in Brighton and Sheffield would add to existing action taking place in Leeds, which on Tuesday (October 27) saw the city council begin to place adverts to recruit extra staff to provide help with refuse collections during the on-going industrial action in the Yorkshire city.

Recruitment adverts have appeared on the council's website calling for applicants to help provide the council's waste collections on a temporary basis.

Leeds last week attempted to end the eight-week long action by offering a revised pay deal to workers but was left “dismayed” when workers voted to reject the offer (see letsrecycle.com story).

The council said the revised offer represented its final offer in the dispute, which has continued to affect household collections as well as leading to the closure of three household waste and recycling centres.

Councillor Richard Brett, leader of Leeds city council, said: “As a major employer in the city, we are committed to providing fair pay for fair day's work for all our employees. That's why we are extremely disappointed the unions rejected our offer to address the pay gap for refuse collectors, which was the primary reason given for the strike in the first place.

“The council has done everything it can to bring this strike to an end and by making sure our own staffing is up to full capacity, we are determined to providing as normal a service as we can.”