Brighton & Hove; Is Bins Dispute Over?

Brighton & Hove City Council have this afternoon (Jul 23rd) issued the following statement about their negotiations with the GMB over proposed changes to the council's allowances system which led to a week long strike in June

GMB members of Cityclean have accepted an offer which includes service redesign proposals.The agreement should be signed by August 12th.

The proposal now includes a Cityclean service redesign and a revision of working patterns which will benefit residents and significantly reduce or eliminate the losses staff would have suffered under previous proposals.
We are in the final weeks of the consultation with all staff on proposals to introduce a consistent, fair, affordable and open system of allowances for staff across the council.
The allowances system for the whole council will be published once the consultation is concluded.

Revised service proposals

*Bank Holiday collections: We propose that rubbish and recycling crews work bank holidays with the exception of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. This will help to improve the service during busy periods. Other than during the festive period, collection dates won?t change following a bank holiday.

*A cleaner city: across the city street sweepers will have changes to their shift times to help make the city cleaner. The proposals also include more work at peak times.

*A more effective service: Changes on the routing of rubbish and recycling rounds will start in October this year and take a few months to be introduced across the city. This will enable us to find efficiencies to reinvest in service improvements.

Brighton & Hove city council Executive Director and Acting Chief Executive; Denise D'Souza said;
 "This is really good news for the city. The proposal which has been agreed by GMB members at Cityclean shows we have made some very significant progress.
 
We are in the final weeks of the consultation period which began in May and we are continuing to work with both our trade unions towards an allowances system for all staff across the council which is fair, open and affordable."