Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/600/8325
From The Socialist newspaper, 3 November 2009
Leeds bins: Yorkshire strikes against management attacks still solid
Leeds bins - 9th week
The LibDem joint leader of Leeds city council, Richard Brett, further insulted striking refuse workers last week by saying you don't need a degree to be a rubbish collector. He was trying to justify the £5,000 a year pay cuts he's trying to impose.
Alistair Tice
Well Councillor Brett, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that already low-paid workers - basic pay £14,500 a year, average earnings £18,000 a year - can't afford pay cuts of nearly one-third.
Also, the productivity increases demanded by your latest 'offer' are impossible to achieve. Binmen are already running round after refuse wagons to achieve the current collection rate of 196 households an hour under 'task and finish'. This is already higher than in neighbouring councils, where it's 181 households. 220 houses an hour is impossible so workers would never qualify for the £4,500 dependent on it. That's why 92% rejected your 'final' offer.
Sickness rates are high because bin workers collect rubbish in all weathers which is detrimental to their health. Impossible productivity targets will make that worse.
Your claim that the strike has 'only' cost Leeds council tax payers £100,000 'only' proves that binmen are low-paid and that it has cost more to get private contractors in to deliver a 'rubbish' service. The private contractors have not even been able to make the promised fortnightly collection, yet they have cost more than the money saved on strikers' wages.
The real reason you want to cut council workers' pay has something to do with the council having a projected overspend of £5.5 million this year as a result of the recession. In other words, you want the low-paid to pay the price for the bursting of the financial and property bubble.
Leeds binmen are now into their ninth week of all-out strike action. Only three strikers have returned to work. Despite rubbish piling up, public support remains high. The strike has forced the council to talk and then find money.
The workers are determined to stay out until the pay cuts are scrapped altogether. On 5 November, refuse collectors in Brighton begin industrial action, including a week-long strike against similar 'pay and regrading' cuts of up to £8,000 a year. Sheffield's already privatised bin workers are also balloting, against the introduction of two-tier pay.
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In The Socialist 3 November 2009:
Socialist Party workplace news
'Modernisation' means cuts: Support the postal workers' fightback
Time to plan for all-out postal strike
Reports from the postal workers' picket lines
Postal workers - step up the action to win! Socialist Party leaflet pdf
Socialism 2009
Want to change the world? Join the Socialist Party!
Socialist Party statement
Action needed to bring election coalition into shape
Socialist Party news and analysis
We want workers' MPs on a worker's wage
RBS/Lloyds - Yet more bailouts and job cuts
Socialist Party workplace news
BA cabin crews come out fighting
Leeds bins strike against management attacks still solid
South Yorkshire firefighters and Sheffield First bus drivers
Trade unionists must fight for decent benefits for all
International socialist news and analysis
Pakistan - New wave of terrorism as the guerrilla war escalates
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