{"id":9622,"date":"2016-08-25T14:59:47","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T13:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9622"},"modified":"2016-08-25T14:59:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T13:59:47","slug":"no-smoking-for-street-sweepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9622","title":{"rendered":"No smoking for street sweepers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Aberdeen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refuse collection staff and street sweepers are being threatened with fines if they smoke within or outside their own depots.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unions say staff have been told that anyone caught breaking new council rules on smoking will be issued by city wardens with a \u00c2\u014150 fixed penalty notice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unite regional officer Tommy Campbell described the move as \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfrankly ridiculous\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 adding, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt has been imposed on our members without any consultation with the trade unions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that the council has the power to threaten staff with fines and fixed penalty notices, and we have asked them to clarify how they propose to do that legally.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s management and HR department didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t discuss this with the unions because clearly we would have rejected the idea of fines out of hand, as well as pointing out that city wardens can only issue fines for unlawful parking and littering.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bStaff have been told that they can still smoke in their designated breaks, but the council has said they will not provide ashtrays or shelters, and that there is to be no smoking anywhere in an enclosed space. Bizarrely, the council says that also includes outside yards.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt means that if council staff at the Kittybrewster depot want to have a smoke on their break, they will have to walk around 300 yards until they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the main road, smoke their cigarette, and then walk 300 yards back.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is clearly another example of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098us and them\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 culture within the city council \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we are not aware of any council managers who have been told that they will be subject to fixed penalty fines.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@davideyre\">@davideyre<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aberdeen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refuse collection staff and street sweepers are being threatened with fines if they smoke within or outside their own depots. &nbsp; Unions say staff have been told that anyone caught breaking new council rules on smoking will be issued by city wardens with a \u00c2\u014150 fixed penalty notice. &nbsp; Unite regional officer Tommy Campbell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[349],"wps_subtitle":"Refuse staff risk fines for lighting up","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622"}],"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=9622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9624,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622\/revisions\/9624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}