Residents face 'days without rubbish collection'

4:40pm Thursday 14th February 2008

By Miles Godfrey

City residents face the prospect of days without their rubbish being collected after talks to resolve wildcat strike action by binmen broke down.

More than 300 binmen and street cleaners have vowed to continue the unofficial industrial action, which will affect the whole of Brighton and Hove, until their demands are met.

They said the stalemate between them and their management had not been broken during the second day of the strike today.

Talks to make the strikes official were taking place with a ballot possibly taking place tomorrow.

Jean Clarke, 65, from Roedale Road, close to the refuse depot in Upper Hollingdean Road, Brighton, said: "I support the rubbish collectors if they are suffering poor working conditions.

"But at the same time I hope the issue is resolved quickly because otherwise the bins will be chock-a-block in a few days."

Brighton and Hove City Council has admitted it has no contingency plans in place to deal with the waste if the strike continues.

Crucial to the disagreement between the binmen and their management, council subsidiary Cityclean, is the breaking up of long-established crews.

Simmering frustration about being overworked because of a shortage of refuse trucks and agency staff boiled over on Wednesday after one worker was allegedly called "fat and lazy" by a senior figure within the management.

The allegation has been denied by Brighton and Hove City Council but a spokesman admitted that changes to crews had sparked the strikes.

Binmen said discontent has grown since November when financial cutbacks made by the council led to fewer lorries operating out of the depot.

Although workers told The Argus they want to get back to work as quickly as possible, they said the strikes would only be called off once their concerns had been addressed.

One said: "We want to get back to work because we feel like we're letting the public down.

"But at the same time we can't do a proper job at the moment because of the cutbacks and changes which have been made. If the management can make concessions to us then we will be back in the job right away."

They said they wanted the management to cancel unofficial disciplinary action they had taken against two binmen who were moved to different crews as punishment for being "inefficient".

Gill Mitchell, leader of the opposition Labour group on the council, said she was writing to Jenny Rowland, the city council's environment director, to quiz her on financial cutbacks made in the autumn.

Cuts from the city council's environment budget totalling £400,000 are being proposed for this year and next year and Coun Mitchell wants clarification over whether this had directly led to cutbacks within the Cityclean service.

A council spokesman has apologised to residents for any "disruption and inconvenience".