Plans to transfer waste staff approved

CONTROVERSIAL plans to transfer about 200 city council staff to Bristol Waste have been approved.

Cabinet members rubberstamped the proposal to move cleaning and security employees over to the local authority’s rubbish and recycling company despite fierce opposition from unions who say it amounts to “lambs lobbying for a new abattoir”.

Bristol City Council insists all workers’ terms and conditions will remain unchanged and that the plans will save taxpayers £2 million over four years and then £900,000 annually.

The dispute has seen City Hall bosses accuse unions of walking out of meetings and opposition members claiming staff have been “gagged”.

In a statement to an extraordinary meeting of cabinet, GMB union Avon and Wessex branch president Jeff Sutton said: “Councillors are still happy to agree to this. It’s a bit like lambs lobbying for a new abattoir.

“The unions have expressed their concerns about the detrimental effect this transfer will have on its members and the citizens they serve, and the transfer of staff from one failing service to a failing company.”

Unison Bristol branch secretary Tom Merchant told cabinet members the transfer, which affects a disproportionate number of employees with African, Caribbean and Somali ethnic backgrounds, would be “damaging”.

He said: “People are not assets to be passed off to third parties.

“This is an idea from people who are personally unaffected by such disasters as outsourcing.”

Mr Merchant said that even if workers’ contracts remained the same, Bristol Waste had different disciplinary and grievance policies and there would be a two-tier system where new appointees would be on different pay to colleagues.

Cllr Richard Eddy said: “The report suggests that meaningful consultation has been carried out with the staff concerned.

“My feedback from employees suggests this was far from the case and, in fact, opposition has been overtly muzzled.”

Deputy mayor Cllr Craig Cheney told the cabinet that the council would “retain strategic oversight of the operation while day-to-day management passes on to Bristol Waste”.

Cllr Cheney said the right to return to the city council would be “enshrined in their terms and conditions should Bristol Waste cease to be operational or if a future administration closes the company”.

The transfer takes effect on

June 1.