BANES strike over as deal reached

The three-week recycling disruption in Bath and North East Somerset caused by strike action has ended after union members accepted a revised offer from Kier yesterday (19 January).

Following successful talks between Kier and trade union Unite on Monday (18 January), the services company returned on Tuesday with a revised offer that alters the phasing of pay increases over a three-year period.

Kier says that the restructured deal, which changes the phasing of pay increases over a three year period (backdated to 2015, 2016 and 2017), will be more heavily front-loaded during the three years, ‘although little more money could be added to the overall package’.

The agreement ends a strike deadlock over a new pay deal that saw disruptions to Bath and North East Somerset Council’s recycling collections, including a two-day strike last week (14/15 January). Forty-five employees at the council’s Keynsham depot, backed by Unite, had been operating an overtime ban that meant that only half of scheduled collections had taken place since the action began on 2 January.

Unite said that an earlier three-year pay deal, which reportedly offered a 12 per cent increase over the next 18 months, was rejected by members as it did not go far enough to address the £2-an-hour difference in pay between themselves and workers doing the same job at a nearby Bristol City Council site.

The workers had threatened to carry out strikes for two days a week until 12 February, and last week the council called on members of the public to apply to join its collection crews on a temporary basis to try and clear the backlog.

However, after a deal was reached, collections began as normal on Tuesday and Kier hopes that the backlog of collections will be cleared by next Monday (25 January).

Frustration

Julian Tranter, Managing Director of Kier Environmental, said: “We appreciate how much disruption the strike, overtime refusal and work to rule has caused for residents, and understand their frustration that so little could be done to offset the impact when strike laws prevent the use of additional agency workers to cover those undertaking industrial action.  

“With the council’s support on our approach, we have worked very hard through ACAS to try to prevent any strike taking place, and during the strike to try to re-engineer an offer that could be used to encourage union members to re-enter talks. We are naturally very pleased that the union chose to re-enter talks, and equally that the revised more front-loaded offer was accepted by members today.

“Once again we apologise for the disruption caused to residents and thank them for their support in continuing to recycle during the dispute.”

Resource has contacted Unite for comment.

More information on the state of collections in the area is available on Kier’s website.