Bin strike 'chaos' looming over Brighton and Hove

A row over driver conditions could see "chaos" on the streets of the city, with the GMB union holding a ballot today.

Mark Turner, GMB Branch Secretary, claims management at Brighton and Hove City Council is suspending workers from their rounds during disciplinary processes "without evidence".

Mark Turner

Their workload, he says, is being passed on to other refuse collectors. However, Brighton and Hove City Council said it "does not understand" the claim.

The union warned on Twitter. "Chaos set to hit Brighton and Hove City Council refuge, recycling and commercial waste service due to an industrial action ballot.

"Strike action could be taking place early in October," it added.

The results of today's ballot are yet to be announced.

The union, which represents the city's bin workers, said it is taking the action due to "unfair and discriminatory treatment of drivers by council management".

It claims there have been constant driver removals, variation of duties, and crew changes which is having an ongoing detrimental effect on drivers’ health and well-being within the city’s depot.

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

The GMB Branch Secretary Mr Turner claims disciplinary suspensions are being made "without evidence" and other hardworking crews are having to fill in the gaps.

He said: "They can't just remove someone because it's being claimed by management that they're not collecting the refuse and provide no evidence.

"If they've done wrong, that's not a problem but they need to justify it.

"What happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

The Hollingdean depot

The strike threat comes amid a national shortage of HGV drivers.

There is now a shortage of more than 100,000 drivers in the UK, out of a pre-pandemic total of about 600,000, according to the Road Haulage Association.

Mr Turner claims some job adverts to replace drivers have gone unfilled after six months.

A Brighton and Hove City 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.

“While the position has improved since August, unfortunately we’re still struggling to get all rounds covered every day and some collections are being missed.

“Staff shortages at Cityclean continues to be a huge problem. The changes to self-isolation rules have meant some staff are now able to work when they wouldn’t have previously.

“But we still have staff who do need to self-isolate when they’ve been in contact with people who are Covid positive.

“However, the key problem is the national labour shortage of HGV drivers and refuse collectors

“This has led to difficulties recruiting to some positions or cover vacancies and absences with agency staff. This has been widely reported in the national news. The pandemic and exit from the EU have contributed to the staff shortages.

“Staff and managers are working hard to try to minimise the impact on residents and managers have therefore asked 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 on to 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. We thank Cityclean staff for their positive response to this approach.

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

“There are often occasions where it is felt appropriate to make crew changes and / or move a member of staff from one round or crew to another. This might be for operational reasons, to address issues relating to the health and wellbeing of an individual member of staff, or to improve performance or service delivery.

“Whenever we need to change rounds or collection crews, we talk this over with the staff. We hope by working collaboratively we can come to agreements over changes without always having to make formal arrangements before changes can be made.

“When concerns over specific requested changes are raised, managers always look into these and will make subsequent changes based on fair and transparent application of our policies and procedures.

“We have also taken the time as a management team to self-reflect and have made a number of commitments and offers to GMB and the drivers.

“This includes the development of local procedures we would like to agree with staff and unions setting out how decisions are made about moving staff across rounds and how dropped work will be collected.

“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.

“We have a number of drivers off sick at the moment.

"We do not understand the reference to drivers ‘being taken off the rounds while facing disciplinaries’.”