The Socialist 12 October 2016

Housing crisis can be beaten

Butterfields victory: housing crisis can be beaten

Tories’ £5bn for housing not enough

Tories whip up division over Brexit...fight for a socialist, internationalist exit

Where next for the BMA junior doctors' dispute

Say no to fracking!

Support the Rotherham 12

Suicidal phone calls: fight to reverse tax credit cuts

Malcolm X: hero of black liberation

Union library campaign strikes blow against Bromley Tories

Bin workers' strike - "about more than just pay"

AMEY = A Massive Empty Yard

Ritzy strikers walk-out and rally

Workplace news in brief

Poland: Mass movement stops total ban on abortion

South Africa: The battle for free education

Shimon Peres - a wolf in sheep's clothing

Lambeth working class demo against cuts and gentrification

Appeal: Don't let the banks wreck our finances!

Momentum should show Blairites the door, not Socialist Party members!

Lobby to keep vital day centre funding

Bradford day centre campaigners meet to fight closure

Fight to save care homes in Carlisle

Cable Street 80th anniversary demo

Attack on young people's health and social care: urgent fightback needed

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/920/23711

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 12 October 2016 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Audio | PDF | ebook

Sheffield Veolia strike, 5.10.16, photo by Alistair Tice (Click to enlarge)

Sheffield bin workers' strike - "about more than just pay"

Alistair Tice

Sheffield bin workers are on a one-day strike today, 5 October, fighting for a better pay rise. Veolia, who have a 35 year contract to run Sheffield council's waste management services, has only offered a 3% rise over the next two years. GMB union members had voted 70% for strike action.

There had been a few rumblings of discontent about the strike so a gate meeting was held at 6am. After a strong appeal by the GMB officer Pete Davies for workers to stick together, no-one wanted to suspend the strike. Around 100 strikers then picketed outside the Lumley Street depot.

Sheffield Veolia strike, 5.10.16, photo by A Tice (Click to enlarge)

GMB members had taken a one-day strike in April this year against management bullying and 'spy in the cab' technology, their first strike for 17 years.

Paul told me:

"That strike made me feel empowered. Since then they've stopped pulling people into the office and the cab cameras are turned off. We need to get back some of that pre-1980s workers' dignity. I don't know if we'll win a better pay rise but if our strike helps bankrupt Veolia so the council has to take us back in-house, then it will be worth it. It can't be morally justified for a big corporation like Veolia to be getting council taxpayers' money when all they're interested in is profit, not putting money back into the city."

Bins, photo by Ivor Ibrahamsen (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)

Mick said:

"It's about more than pay. Veolia want us to start earlier, work longer. They're bringing in more and more agency workers (many who were used to scab on the strike). We want the council to take them back in-house but this Labour council is like a Conservative one with all the cuts and privatisation."

Pete Davies said that this wouldn't be the last strike and the union may re-ballot to widen the demands of the dispute and sections involved.

Update on 10.10.16:

A Veolia Unite rep in Haringey, London, tipped off the GMB in Sheffield that a letter was posted on their noticeboard and had been sent to a number of Veolia regions asking for drivers and loaders to come to Sheffield at the weekend to clear up the dropped bins not collected due to the strike, including offering overnight hotel accommodation!
This angered the Sheffield bin workers so much that they've called a second strike for Monday 17th October.

This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 5 October 2016 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.

In this issue

Housing crisis

Butterfields victory: housing crisis can be beaten