Full inquiry needed over reasons for bins dispute

Raquel Welch, actress Johnny Briggs, actor and former Coronation Street star

Dick Clement, scriptwriter, George Lazenby, actor, Werner Herzog, film director, Al Stewart, singer/songwriter, Michael Keaton, actor, Mark Ramprakash, cricketer, Adam Hollioake, cricketer, READING the article in last Tuesday’s Examiner about a possible bin workers strike makes you wonder what is behind all this.

It says that there has been harassment, bullying, racism and workers unable to take holidays.

Looking at this logically I think that there needs to be a full investigation into these allegations before any action can be taken by either side.

What type of harassment took place and by whom? Were there witnesses to it and the same goes for the racism - who witnessed it?

Regarding being unable to take holidays, was the request to take holidays refused because there were other people having holidays at the same time ? This would mean that the teams would be under-staffed and not able to carry out their duties, and why were some workers owed 40 weeks of holidays?

No doubt they were paid when they did not take their holidays so we’re not out of pocket.

Who carried out the bullying and what type of bullying was it?

In my mind the answers to a lot of questions need to be brought out into the open and people named if necessary.

As far as I can see both Unison and the council need to carry out full investigations into what is going on before there are any strikes.

So come on you two, get your acts together and sort the problems out. Let’s have a lot of talking before you put the residents of Kirklees through another period of no bin collections. the complaints about men not being able to take their holidays, being bullied and harassed.

The council has a lot to answer for. You could probably bet the supervisors haven’t missed their holidays.

I have friends who have worked for Kirklees and have left through retirement or have had enough and left to work elsewhere or set up there own business.

They have said this kind of attitude is endemic over virtually all departments and councilors and supervisors at all levels have tried to brush it under the carpet.

The council are said to have brought in a means whereby complaints can be made against individuals who have been taking advantage of their position to bully or intimidate their workers.

But what is happening is that the person who is making the harassment claim is the one being investigated and that the supervisor who might be guilty of serious breechers of workers’ rights is automatically assumed to be innocent.

The best part is that the investigation into the claim is being done by the manager himself or his supervisor who might have their own agenda for getting rid of someone or are just looking out for each other and protecting their positions at the expense of any one who wants their actual working rights.

Some kind of independent inquiry not involving any council member or supervisor would be a much better way to find out what is actually going on with this council and its workforce and who is really to blame for the disruption that has been caused these last months.