{"id":12621,"date":"2017-06-19T09:40:02","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T08:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12621"},"modified":"2017-06-19T13:39:09","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T12:39:09","slug":"paying-the-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12621","title":{"rendered":"Paying the price"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Refuse workers at Birmingham city council, who voted overwhelmingly for strike action, are considering industrial action, as the council axes 122 waste collection jobs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The refuse workers, members of Unite, voted by 90 per cent for strike action over proposed job cuts to the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s waste and refuse service and attempts by council bosses to tear up long standing agreements with the union covering staffing levels and working patterns.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The workers also voted by 93 per cent for industrial action short of a strike.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The ballot results came at the same time as council bosses announced that they intended to make 122 waste collection staff redundant in the next fortnight which is about 20 per cent of the actual refuse collection squad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is unfortunate that the day the ballot results came through, the council&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0waste management service announced it intended to make 122 waste collection staff redundant in two weeks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 time,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Lynne Shakespeare Unite regional officer.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Employees, who have worked, in some cases, for up to 30 years in waste services, are being told that they are no longer wanted and need to find alternative work.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe loss of\u00c2\u00a0jobs in this area\u00c2\u00a0is a disgrace, as bosses continue to increase recruiting agency workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there appears to be no coherent workplace planning by the council,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Lynne.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00c2\u00a0discovered\u00c2\u00a0during the farcical consultation\u00c2\u00a0that the management has been\u00c2\u00a0instructing our members\u00c2\u00a0to collect side waste (boxes and bags left beside the bins) even though it is not budgeted for and\u00c2\u00a0to collect \u00e2\u20ac\u0098green\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 waste from residents who have not paid for this service,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The management has failed to keep to a budget, having created a huge \u00c2\u01419.7m overspend in the financial year for 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe\u00c2\u00a0sad thing about this is\u00c2\u00a0that\u00c2\u00a0our members are going to pay the price for this incompetence with their jobs and the Birmingham taxpayers are picking up the tab for mismanagement of waste services,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Lynne.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are currently consulting with our members as to the next steps in regards to industrial action as\u00c2\u00a0all of the 122 posts due to be cut\u00c2\u00a0are in safety sensitive areas, such as the operation and safety at the rear of the vehicles,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Refuse workers at Birmingham city council, who voted overwhelmingly for strike action, are considering industrial action, as the council axes 122 waste collection jobs. &nbsp; The refuse workers, members of Unite, voted by 90 per cent for strike action over proposed job cuts to the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s waste and refuse service and attempts by council bosses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[461,263,582,88],"wps_subtitle":"Refuse workers to strike in job slash protest?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12621"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12625,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12621\/revisions\/12625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}