Thousands of bins go unemptied in Blackburn with Darwen council strike (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Thousands of bins go unemptied in Blackburn with Darwen council strike

9:39pm Tuesday 6th May 2008 in

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AROUND 15,000 homes will not have their bins emptied this week as council workers go on strike.

Hundreds of Blackburn with Darwen Council staff have walked out for tomorrow and Thursday in the ongoing row over wages.

The strike will mean around a fifth of homes who have their household rubbish collected on a Wednesday and Thursday will not have their bins emptied.

And temperatures are expected to hit their highest so far this year, 22 degrees celsius, prompting health and hygiene fears.

Thousands of the affected homes are on fortnightly collections, meaning householders will be left with three-weeks of rubbish until their collections resume next week.

The controversial job evaluation process, a bid to end inequalities between men and women's pay, has seen 1,266 of the council's 5,800 staff facing wage cuts.

About 300 members of the Transport and General Workers section of Unite, who include refuse collectors, gardeners, street cleaners and school caretakers are to take part in the action.

Workers will protest outside Blackburn town hall and at the direct services department depot in Davyfield Road.

The authority said the only services hit by the strike will be rubbish collections, and recycling services, which are carried out by a private contractor, will continue as normal.

T&G spokesperson Roz Shepherd said: "I think this will cause a lot of disruption to services, but that is the point we are trying to make.

"I don't want to see staff losing money. They are on protection for 12 months but beyond that they stand to lose out. There will be a substantial amount of losers.I also want to see the 90-day dismissal notices recinded for those who did not sign up to the new pay line. "

The strike may also be resumed next week if workers feel a resoltuion has been reached.

Graham Burgess, chief executive said: "We have plans in place to keep any impact on services to a minimum and have scheduled further meetings with Unite to try and resolve this issue. We are pleased that the GMB have decided to try and resolve any differences through dialogue and hope that Unite will decide to do the same."

The council said that bin collections will be affected in locations throughout the borough.

The council said collection routes are not limited to distinct areas of the borough but take in large areas across Blackburn and Darwen.

Over 24,000 houses out of 60,000 in the borough are still on fortnightly waste collections.

Proposed strike action by GMB members was postponed on Friday after last ditch talks with Blackburn with Darwen Council chief executive Graham Burgess.

GMB organiser Graham Coxon agreed to the council's request to suspend the action while the council demonstrated its plans to alleviate the loss suffered by workers.

Members have been sent letters explaining that the strike has been postponed until June 16.

Last month the Lancashire Telegraph revealed the hundreds of staff who already earned less than £15,000 a year were facing cuts, and more than half of the 1,266 'losers' would have their salaries cut by more than 10 per cent.

A letter sent to council staff has warned them they will be sacked if they do not agree to the new terms and conditions within 90 days.

The government has told all councils to make changes to ensure roles traditionally held by women, such as carers, are paid on the same level as jobs like street cleaners and gardeners.

The changes follow a review of 5,500 council jobs, and bosses say 24 per cent of salaries will go down, 46 per cent increase, and the remaining 30 per cent stay the same.