Workers at Sheffields five household waste recycling centres are set to strike this weekend over plans to dramatically reduce the sites opening hours and make staff redundancies.
According to the GMB trade union, which represents 90% of the staff who work on the sites, the plans to close the sites to the public during the week are a scandal. Their members are planning to strike from Saturday (May 26) until Monday (May 28).
SOVA Recycling, a branch of national volunteer organisation Supporting Others Through Voluntary Action, signed a 3 million five-year contract in January 2012 to operate and manage the council-owned HWRCs at Douglas Road, Blackstock, Beighton, Highgreen and Deepcar in Sheffield on behalf of the city councils waste contractor Veolia.
But, from June 6 SOVA said it would be limiting public access to the sites from seven to four days per week in order to reduce costs, changes that will result in at least seven voluntary redundancies from the 39 employees across the sites, as well reduced working hours for many of the remaining staff. The sites will remain open on weekdays for commercial use.
Savings
According to the council, the changes to the operating hours will result in savings of around 487,000 per year.
However, Peter Davies, an organiser for the GMB union in Sheffield, which represents many of the site workers, claims there is enough money available to maintain the service in its current form. He has accused the council and its contractors of lacking the will to do so.
Mr Davies said: To close the sites through the week to the public who not only pay for them but actually own them ( as all sites belong to the council) and force the remaining workforce to work longer and more unsociable hours for little more than the minimum wage is a scandal. This is especially the case as we are about to switch to fortnightly bin collections which will increase the need for recycling.
The forced redundancies are due to kick in at the beginning of June, and our members voted over 90% in favour of strike action. We will begin the strike action this week and ask the public to join our fight by signing our petition to the Council and encouraging them to speak to their elected Councillors and MP’s. Somebody has to take responsibility for this gross misuse of public money. Cuts are one thing but in this case they are no more than a smoke screen to hide what is really happening to recycling in Sheffield.
GMB has been constantly told by SOVA and the council, that they have no choice but to close most of the sites through the week, make several staff redundant and reduce bonus payments because of the insistence by Veolia and the council that they can only pay just over 600,000 per year for the service.
This is almost 400,000 less than was paid to the last sub-contractor and was also, incidentally the amount that SOVA were told to shave off their bid in the tender process that Veolia and the council ran last year, Mr Davies said.
Profit
Councillor Jack Scott, Sheffield city councils cabinet member for the environment, recycling and streetscene said the changes to the service were necessary due to local government spending cuts.
He said: We have worked with the employers at the sites, SOVA Recycling, and with Veolia. I believe that SOVA has listened to the concerns of its employees. The basic problem is that Sheffield is facing massive government cuts.
“Of course, if there was an alternative to making this cut, we would take it. But the reality is that this is the consequence of such massive cuts. Im pleased that we will be able to keep two of the five sites open and Im very sorry for the inconvenience that this strike will cause.
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