Following a series of lengthy meetings which have been taking place between senior council staff, councillors and the GMB, the council has today attempted to put forward a revised and second offer to the GMB union which sought to resolve the current dispute so waste and recycling collection services can resume in the city.
The GMB left the meeting prior to hearing the full details of this second ‘significant’ offer.
GMB balloted HGV drivers last month about whether to take strike action because of
“… failures to follow Council policy’s (sic) and procedures regarding HGV holding drivers, and resulting unilateral decision making around variations of duties, crew changes, planning for collecting of dropped work, and the accumulating resultant effect and toll on Driver's health and wellbeing and associated issues within the refuse, recycling, com-bins and trades waste.”
Keen to resolve the issues and prevent a strike, council managers met with GMB representatives several times before the start of the strike to listen to staff concerns as put forward by GMB. Talks unfortunately were unable to avert a strike.
On 5 October – the first day of the strike – a series of new management measures was submitted as a formal resolution proposal to GMB which was then discussed at length on Wednesday.
During those negotiations, GMB raised an additional issue about pay for all Cityclean operational staff.
A formal resolution proposal which covered the new management measures and an offer relating to pay was put to the GMB on Wednesday 6 October. This was rejected on 7 October.
Today the council has responded with a revised and significant second offer relating to pay which has been rejected.
Speaking today about the next steps a council spokesperson said:
“It’s disappointing that this offer has been turned down today. It was a significant and generous offer which would benefit not just staff in the Cityclean service, but also staff across the whole council.
“We urge the GMB to review the offer formally submitted to them in writing and come back to the table to discuss with us.”
If agreement cannot be reached, all resolution options including the resolution proposal from the GMB will now be tabled in a report to go to a P&R Urgency Sub-Committee meeting to be decided on by councillors.
This is meeting is expected to take place this week.
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