Council refuse workers in Barking and Dagenham strike against cuts of £1000pa 18/3/15, photo Pete Mason

Council refuse workers in Barking and Dagenham strike against cuts of £1000pa 18/3/15, photo Pete Mason   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Barking and Dagenham refuse workers strike against wages theft

Pete Mason, Barking & Dagenham Socialist Party

Barking and Dagenham council refuse workers have been forced to take three days of strike action this week, and two days in April, in an attempt to stop their Labour council from stealing £1,000 out of their annual wage packet.

At the Creek Road depot, pickets closed the depot and joked that the council is ‘up the creek without a paddle.’ At the Frizlands Lane Reuse and Recycling Centre there was a large and enthusiastic picket line, with GMB flags flying.

The council intended to cut £2,000 a year from these low-paid workers, but a few Labour councillors, who at least saw the injustice of this attempt, managed to knock the robbery down to a ‘mere’ grand at the committee stage before the council’s budget was passed. The highest-paid council officers are said to be awarding themselves a pay rise of up to 9% at the very same time.

The bin workers were not impressed and voted solidly to strike. An online poll showed 75% in favour of the bin workers’ action. “The residents have spoken”, Keith Williams, GMB regional officer told the Socialist, “Our members are fighting against the loss of £1,000 of wages. The council should listen to the democratic voice of the workers”.

But even the very best of the councillors on this Labour council, that minority who have retained their connection with the trade unions, are only engaging in concession bargaining, for fear of the removal of the Labour whip and expulsion. They all voted for the huge cuts in the 2015-16 council budget.

Our Barking Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate, Joseph Mambuliya, who is himself a cleaner on the London Underground, was well received when he visited the picket lines. Some pickets told us they had seen our publicity in the local newspaper.

Many GMB members enthusiastically welcome the idea of TUSC standing against Barking MP Margaret Hodge. In 2006 the GMB London region itself called on Hodge to resign. The GMB should break with the Labour Party.

Joseph chairs the London Underground Cleaners’ Grade Committee of the transport workers’ union RMT.

Our Barking TUSC resolution supporting the bin workers was well received by their branch.


This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 18 March 2015 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.