Cityclean update

Statement

Head of City Clean & Parks Richard Bradley said; “We met with the GMB union again on Thursday to try and find a way to resolve the current dispute and get the service back on track and meeting resident’s needs.

“We apologise to residents affected. We have met every request of the union to meet, to carry out job evaluation work and to try and achieve an acceptable resolution.

“Unfortunately the GMB currently do not accept the job evaluation panel’s findings on the driver charge hand’s job grade. The GMB has also refused to take part in the panel itself. The grading is in line with other similar jobs across the council and has been through a robust and established evaluation process.

“Under equal pay legislation we cannot raise pay in one area of the council without justification and without applying an unaffordable cost across the entire organisation.

“We will continue to offer to meet our Union colleagues and seek a swift end to the misery this ongoing industrial action is causing local residents.”

Operational update

The work to pick up the backlog of dropped work is progressing well.  It is our intention to have all of Wednesday’s refuse work caught up by the end of today. By close of play Saturday, we plan to have caught up on Thursday’s and Friday’s dropped refuse so all refuse will be fully up to date. 

On Sunday, we aim to start on the significant backlog of recycling work from many parts of the city which we anticipate will continue into Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Our advice to residents is to leave their refuse out for collection as we will aim to clear the backlog as soon as possible.

However all refuse & recycling driver charge-hand drivers are still working to rule and it may take several days for all the rubbish to be cleared.

Dropped Work 13/2/2015