The industrial action follows a breakdown in talks between the city council and unions GMB and Unite at the end of last month over plans to ‘level up' the salaries for male and female council employees under a pay grading review.
The council has admitted that the review, although leading to pay rises in a number of areas, would “adversely affect” the pay of around 440 workers in the refuse, street cleaning and waste management working for the council's in-house services.
In a bid to lessen the disruption – which has affected refuse and recycling collections and also seen three of the council's 11 household waste and recycling centres temporarily closed – the council has drafted in private companies to help clear the waste.
A spokeswoman for Leeds city council told letsrecycle.com that there were 16 crews, comprised of six council and 10 private crews, collecting refuse today (September 17) but that there had been disruption across the city.
She said: “Sixteen crews are working today, that is probably taking us to around 40%, or over one-third of normal [collections]. What we have done is brought in private contractors to do some work and we did a number of households [collections] at the beginning of the week. There have been arrangements for additional services.”
Strike
Workers from both unions were balloted at the end of August about the possibility of continuous strike action, with 311 out of 668 workers voting for this. GMB claimed that the proposed strike action would see wages cut from £18,000 to £13,000 a year for refuse workers.
Tony Pearson, regional organiser at Unite, said: “We have apologised to the people of Leeds and we feel they understand that we have no choice. Ask anyone whether they could survive if they lost a third of their wages at a stroke and the answer would be a resounding no.”
“Our members,” added Mr Pearson, “do some of the hardest and most important jobs in the city. The unions have always supported service improvements which would mean pay levels could be maintained without costing Council Tax payers a penny.”
The council has agreed to protect the pay of staff who are adversely affected by the new pay and grading structure for a period of three years. However, the unions want to ensure that nobody loses pay but the council claims that this would cost it £45 million-a-year to maintain.
Since talks broke down and the union members voted to walk-out both sides have accused the other of refusing the return to the negotiating table.
Desiree Risebury, regional organiser at GMB, said: “Our door is always open for talks but so far the Council has not accepted that invitation.”
Responding to the unions' claims, Cllr Brett said: “If anything it is the unions who are being untruthful, especially with their members. After all it is they who walked away from the table and the talks we were having which could have prevented this strike happening in the first place.”
Security
Commenting on the dumping of the refuse bags outside his home, Cllr Brett said: “The dumped rubbish is more of an inconvenience – but it does prove how low people are prepared to go. This kind of tactic won't do the bin men's cause any good.”
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