Council co-leaders publish open letter ahead of months of bin strikes

The leader and co-leader of South Gloucestershire Council have written an open letter to the Unite Union and Suez over the ongoing bin dispute.

They say residents deserve to know what's been done to settle the dispute, with the local authority earlier this week publishing their contingency plans.

Industrial action's planned to last until September.

Earlier this week, the local authority published a series of mitigating plans, in which it was revealed black bins were going to be prioritised if walkouts continue into September.

Those plans include 'special arrangements' for extra deposit points for locals to get rid of their recycling, in the event that black bins are the only ones that are collected during the period of strike action.

In the open letter, published by the Leader and Co-Leader of South Gloucestershire Council, it's claimed 'satisfaction' of local refuse collections is the highest of all the council services offered in the region, calling their work with Suez a 'success story'.

They now want to know exactly what has been done to mitigate the walkouts.

Previously, a spokesperson for SUEZ recycling and recovery UK told us: "We have offered our teams working on our South Gloucestershire Council contract an 8% pay increase for 2023 which, when combined with the similar pay increase agreed in 2022, delivers pay increases of 15 – 16.75% over 2 years. This was rejected by Unite the Trade Union, who are seeking a 15% increase for 2023 alone, which would deliver pay increases in excess of 22% over 2 years.

"Industrial action is the very last outcome we wanted to see and our goal is to reach an agreement that would bring this to an end. Our door is still open and we welcome further discussions with Unite.

"With just over 40% of our people in South Gloucestershire continuing to work, we are able to provide a limited collection service that prioritises collecting black bin waste and opening the larger Sort It centres. We’re also developing arrangements for recycling to cover the union’s proposed strike over the summer, such as some Sort It centres opening earlier with dedicated space for food waste and extra recycling. Unfortunately these won’t be as convenient as our normal weekly household collection service but they will allow householders to continue to recycle.

"We’d like to apologise to our residents in South Gloucestershire for the disruption from the strike action and thank them for their patience."

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