Brighton bin strike: Union votes to hold ballot over 'unfair treatment'

The GMB Union announced today that its members have voted to undertake an industrial action ballot in Brighton and Hove over "unfair and discriminatory treatment of drivers by council management".

If the strike goes ahead, residents would see a late summer disruption to both the city’s residential refuse and recycling and commercial waste services.

The union, which represents the city's bin workers, claim there have been constant driver removals, variation of duties, and crew changes.

It claims there is an on-going detrimental effect on drivers’ health and well-being within the city’s depot.

Of the 53 drivers in the city, all bar one voted to take strike action and the union will now provide the legally required notices around industrial ballot process to the council.

"Our members clear consultative ballot outcome is a result of that frustration and welfare concern," the union said.

"The independent ballot, which would be the last stage legally required before angry drivers could take action, has come about through unilateral daily changes and removal of drivers from long-standing rounds without process, at the whim of uniformed management."

Mark Turner, GMB branch secretary, added: "GMB members have throughout the pandemic tried to maintain the best service it could, despite severe Covid staff shortages and working with a dilapidated and archaic fleet of unsuitable vehicles leaving its mark on the staff who have tried to cope with the fall out and continue delivering day after day.

"Break downs and vehicle fires are commonplace despite the best efforts of the maintenance team. At the depot a large amount of fleet is just so old and worn out that keeping them on the road for any length of time is becoming simply impossible. That in turn as staff return from Covid related issues and annual leave leads to frustrations for staff trying to keep on top of an already struggling workload.

"Rounds have become disjointed during the pandemic and have fallen so far behind that the experienced loading teams capable of turning things around are finding their drivers removed and replaced with operators with little knowledge of particular rounds and all at the whim of management without following the due processes put in place by the council in the first place, to manage the very service they then disrupt."

Gary Palmer, GMB Regional Organiser, added: "Next steps are that we will now need to contact the Chief Executive at the council Geoff Raw and provide all the necessary information and notifications required by law over the coming week, but a late summer of discontent could be on the cards if members vote to strike, and discussions fail.

"Hopefully the deja vu I’m sure the city as well as ourselves is feeling also includes a solution which prevents the need to take strike action, but my concern is that the antiquated fleet issues are matched by outdated management unilateral approach methods which our members will simply and rightfully no longer stand for.

"Our members health and wellbeing is our number one concern at this point, and the council must get on board with that or we are going to enter a dispute which this city could do without right now if they can’t manage to treat GMB members and their employees with a bit more dignity, respect and appreciation for all they do, day in day out, under difficult conditions."

A council spokesman said: “We want to thank our very hardworking Cityclean staff for working tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure our streets and city have remained as clean and tidy as possible.

“With many of our drivers and crew having caught to Covid-19 or been forced to self-isolate, the staffing situation has changed on an almost daily basis. We haven’t been able to supplement the shortage of staff with agency staff as normal as they are also experiencing the difficulties of Covid and self-isolation.

“Our managers have therefore had to ask all Cityclean staff to work flexibly to make sure our residents and customers receive the best possible service.

“This has meant having to change crew members around when needed, move them onto different collection rounds at short notice, ask crews to collect work that wasn’t collected by other crews and generally adapt to the changing and very challenging situation.

The spokesman added: “We fully understand the impact Covid and lockdown has and still is having on our staff, and Cityclean managers have been as supportive to staff as possible while also dealing with their own Covid issues.

“We are having difficulties with some of our lorries, but this is mainly due to struggling to get much-needed parts due to Brexit. However, we are carrying out huge investment in our fleet which will see these issues resolved in the near future, including a new all electric refuse vehicle in mid-September.

“We are fully committed to working with the GMB as we have done throughout lockdown, so it’s therefore regrettable the GMB is balloting its members on possible industrial action at this time.”