Over 100 refuse drivers in Barking and Dagenham will begin an eight-day strike today (1 May) following a dispute over pay cuts.

Drivers in the borough have already taken seven days of strike this year, over what GMB described as the council’s decision to reduce vehicle drivers’ salaries by around £1,000 a year, while introducing new high-level posts elsewhere in the council.

This claim was refuted by the council, which stated that the reduction was not in salaries, but in ‘overtime to carry out prestart (safety) inspections’.

Although the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Council managed to agree terms with refuse drivers belonging to two other trade unions (Unite and Unison) yesterday, GMB announced that ‘it (was) not possible to bridge differences between union members and the council by haggling across a table’, and so over 100 of its members would be striking from 6 am today to 10 pm on 8 May.

The council had offered union members a settlement that involved a reduction in overtime from 30 to 15 minutes (starting in November) and an average one-off goodwill payment of £500 for each driver (although GMB claims its members were only offered £400). It also proposed that the terms and conditions of the employment of refuse drivers would not be looked at again over the two-year life of the current budget.

Council agreement with unions ‘stabs GMB members in the backs’

Commenting on the Acas talks yesterday, Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary for Public Services, said: “These drivers stand to lose £1,000 a year and so far the council has offered them a one-off £300 ‘goodwill gesture’. Today they upped that to £400.

“Having told them that a loss of £1,000 a year for life would require considerable compensation – we suggested £5,000 – I think it is pretty obvious that there is a huge gap between us.

“We said there needs to be a fundamental change in the approach to this dispute and GMB therefore recommended that Acas talks should be reconvened when meaningful negotiations were possible. This was agreed.

“However, following that discussion the council management went behind our backs and did a deal with Unison and Unite, who don’t have any members involved in this strike. I have to say that I just don’t understand what those unions are doing, colluding with the council leadership to undermine an official strike.

“I do know what LBBD management are doing – splitting the unions to try to divide and conquer. It won’t work.”

He added that GMB members were “incensed by this attempt to stab them in the back” and that “blatant attack on GMB and the drivers is now a dispute with all our members”.

As such, he said that the strike will go ahead this week, and warned that GMB will “escalate the action beyond that”.

GMB compensation demands could pay for ‘two big children’s centres’

In response to GMB’s confirmation of strike action, Councillor Dominic Twomey, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance, said: “GMB want a £5,000 one-off payment for each driver plus 20 minutes’ overtime which is clearly irresponsible at a time when we have to make significant savings and is not in the best interest of our residents.

“It would cost the council £690,000 in one-off payments alone when we have to make £39m savings over the next two years. That £690,000 is the same as funding two big children’s centres and all our satellite centres or one of our flagship libraries or two of our smaller ones.

“There is no way we will let GMB hold us or our residents to ransom.”

Earlier in the day, Twomey had stated that talks with Unite and Unison had been ‘constructive, with both sides having to give a little’.

Find out more about the GMB dispute with Barking and Dagenham Council.