Off settling this dispute’
“Those who are not taking industrial action ‘allow them holiday requests’. So that’s resulted in further legal proceedings we’ve entered against the council again for blacklisting.
“It’s also, importantly, completely impractical on an operational basis because as and when this dispute ends, it means that people’s holiday entitlement will be immense and the service will again be disrupted.”
The MoU meant the waste service had to move from a four-day working week with overtime to a five-day working week with no overtime while the grade 3 role was redesigned into the WRCO position. In practice does it work?
“It works if the council wants invest the money that is needed make it work. to to
“They have to ensure the vehicles can cope with five days, they have to ensure there are grade 3s and that involves investment.
“Now we’ve upheld our side of the argument. The workforce accepted the five-day working week.
“We fully trained in respect of the implementation of the new role; we didn’t breach the MoU in any sense at all.
“The council need to show their own workforce and the people of Birmingham that they will invest in the service in order to make it fully operational.”
How does this all end?
“It ends by the council accepting that the principle of saying there is money on the table means you have to follow through with principles of equality and fairness in respect of the amount of money. Very simply, the council is now a fraction off a payment that would settle this dispute.
“That is a payment that has always been based on one of principle from our members. It is one that says they are not being discriminated against in the workplace.
“That would finish this dispute now and the people of Birmingham will hold this council to account as to why they are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds pursuing the dispute when very little extra would see this dispute come to an end.
“After that the council needs to commit itself to the 2017 agreement, they need to understand the safety critical role at the back of the bins.
“Then everybody can get back to normal business and we can start collecting waste in the city of Birmingham without disruption.”
It would be an absolute disgrace for a Labour council to use Tory legislation
Unite assistant general secretary
Howard Beckett