Biffa waste workers currently on strike in Wealden

Members of GMB, the union for Waste, Recycling, Street Operatives and Drivers, are on strike at Wealden County Council Waste Services, over low pay and poor terms and conditions.

The organised bin strike, taking place in East Sussex, began on 2 May and will continue for two weeks. Waste operators and drivers who are employed by Wealden Council’s contractor Biffa have taken industrial action in response to the company’s latest offer, which falls short of GMB members’ expectations.

Strikes were set to begin on the morning of 25 April, but were suspended while the union consulted its members on an improved offer from Biffa. The union has since revealed that this offer was rejected with “a turnout of 96.6 per cent, by a margin of 93.1 per cent to 6.9 per cent”. The trade union said that Biffa’s offer was ‘well short’ of its members’ expectations.

GMB had warned of disruption to Hastings bin collections this week and the next after the Labour Council became ‘embroiled’ in the bin dispute. Strike action across the district council’s residential services will affect around 70,000 homes.

On 2 May, it was announced that work usually completed by GMB members would be covered by agency workers and managers working out of the St Leonards depot. However, the St Leonards depot is part of the Hastings Biffa contract not part of the Wealden one.

Mark Turner GMB B50 Branch Secretary said: "To avoid sitting down to meaningful talks with GMB or improving the low pay offer already made, Biffa’s Managing Director Roger Edwards has opted to employ agency workers and to order local management back behind the wheel to seek to break his own low paid employee’s strike.

"I would understand Tory councillors getting behind anti-trade union tactics by Biffa, but GMB were shocked to hear that the company had chosen to embroil Hastings and Rother’s Labour Council in the dispute by running the service from St Leonards. This will now inevitably impact on Hastings as well as Wealden's bin collections. 

"Somebody at Wealden council should learn the lessons from the Brighton and Hove, Eastbourne and Adur and Worthing strikes that trying to wait out or undermine GMB industrial action will make things worse in the long run."

Gary Palmer GMB Regional Organiser said: "GMB have tried twice now to meet to negotiate a settlement to avoid industrial action but at least we now know why these talks weren’t taken seriously by Biffa’s MD, he was too busy plotting and spending money to avoid increasing a pay offer to his own employees.

“This is despite local management Trevor Elliott regularly boasting to staff that the East Sussex waste partnership contract is one of Biffa’s most profitable.

"Well robust actions by Biffa deserve robust responses by the GMB and its members and supporters, but Wealden County Council and unfortunately its residents will now have to see the rubbish pile up in the street for even longer as the Strike has been extended to 4 weeks and subject to potentially extending it even longer.

"There’s nothing new about Biffa’s anti-trade union approach and GMB has seen it all before. Eventually, they will get around the table to meaningfully resolve the dispute but GMB will be very disappointed if Hastings council are the reason that our members' campaign is undermined."

Yesterday, the Wealden District Council commented: “The strike by employees of our waste and street cleaning contractor, Biffa, and whom are members of the GMB union, has continued today.

“The outcome of a ballot of its members by the GMB union on a new pay offer made by Biffa last week to end the strike is still awaited.

“We appreciate this is an inconvenience and concern to residents and we apologise for this short-term situation while Biffa and the GMB union continue to negotiate to reach a fair settlement.”