Recycling staff in Sheffield are to strike on Saturday (23 June) unless the Council rethinks recycling cuts.
Staff members of Household Waste and Recycling Centres in Sheffield have been on strike for a total of 15 days since the budget cuts were announced in May. Sheffield Council’s plans to make changes to opening times are expected save £500,000 from their budget, but could result in seven job losses.
The GMB has said that a rethink was needed over the cuts to spending, and if a solution is not found, union members will strike indefinitely on Saturday (23 June) over the council’s plans. The sites affected are Beighton, Highgreen and Deepcar. Douglas Road and Blackstock Road HWRCs will remain open.
Sheffield Council said, however, that plans have been put in place to deal with an indefinite strike.
Speaking to Resource, Councillor Jack Scott, Sheffield City Council's Cabinet Member for Environment, Waste and Streetscene, said: “We’ve been working with Veolia and SOVA for several months to try and resolve this situation, which has been caused by the governments reckless cuts. We’ll keep working with interested parties to secure a result as quickly as possible.
He added: “I hope the strikes will be over soon, and that we can find a solution, but the reality is that this saving has got to be made. We’ve done an awful lot of work in terms of providing concessions to workers. They’re on enhanced redundancy pay, we’ve reduced the number of redundancies significantly and we’ve introduced a new and better bonus scheme to really incentivise recycling. The implementation of this change was also delayed for three months.”
“This is what such massive and reckless cuts look like. There are no easy choices. There are no cuts that don’t have consequences”, said Scott.
More information on Sheffield recycling strikes can be found on the Sheffield City Council website.
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