Friday 13th May 2022 – Waste collection and street cleansing industrial action update

Statement from Wealden District Council

The strike by employees of our waste and street cleaning contractor, Biffa, and whom are members of the GMB union, has continued today.

Our waste contractor, Biffa, have informed us that the GMB union have notified them of their intention to extend the strike action up to the 28th May 2022.  This is disappointing bearing in mind Biffa reiterate their commitment to resolving this dispute and continue to engage with representatives of the GMB union to reach a fair settlement for their employees and the residents of Wealden. 

Whilst we remain hopeful Biffa and the GMB union are able to reach a settlement before this date and bring the strike to an end sooner, disappointingly the GMB union have rejected the latest increased pay offer from Biffa, despite members of the Unison union accepting. The offer was to pay the staff in Wealden the same as those working in Rother & Hastings. As it is a joint contract between Wealden, Rother & Hastings Councils, that seemed a fair approach. This is also the same offer which was accepted by the GMB union and its members in Hastings and Rother only a few weeks ago. At that time, the GMB described the settlement as a “whopping pay deal” as it saw pay increases of between 8% and 20% for all the staff in those areas. By comparison, the pay award for nurses for 2022 is expected to be up to 3% and State pensions are to increase by just 3.1%. 

It is also disappointing that the GMB has announced its intention to prevent Biffa from providing services to domestic households in Wealden with a GMB union regional officer stating “we mustn’t start negotiating until the rubbish piles up in the streets.”

We believe our residents deserve to know this to take an informed view on the merits of the industrial action being taken and, whether the strike is being extended unnecessarily by the GMB union. 

The following are services that will be operating in full or in part today:

• Rubbish collections – Approximately half of the rounds scheduled to empty rubbish bins today are working.  Please put your rubbish bin out if you are due a collection today. If it is not emptied please leave it in place for three working days as efforts are being made to catch up on missed rubbish collections.  If its remains uncollected after this, please take it back in and use the link below to our questions and answers to find out what to do.
• Clinical waste and sharps box collections – operating as normal
• Bulky Waste Collections – operating as normal
• Bin deliveries and exchanges – operating as normal
• Street litter bins and dog waste bins – some disruption to services

The following are services that will not be operating today:

• Approximately half of the rubbish collections (see above)
• Garden Waste Collections
• Recycling Collections 

We appreciate this is an inconvenience and concern to residents and we apologise for this situation while Biffa and the GMB union continue to negotiate to reach a fair settlement. 

You may have a few questions so please see our list of questions and answers to explain what is happening and why, what the impact may be and, what you can do.

Some regular questions are:

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience that may be caused by this situation and thank you for your cooperation and understanding during this time.