It's Gangsterism Not Trade Unionism, Says Leader

A minority of workers have resorted to “gangsterism not trade unionism” by disrupting rubbish and recycling collections across Brighton and Hove.

Council leader Bella Sankey pulled no punches in an update on historic problems and recent issues at Cityclean – now renamed environmental services.

She said that there had been a return to “bully-boy” tactics and a doubling of missed collections.

At a cabinet meeting Councillor Sankey said that work was under way to tackle the missed rubbish, recycling and garden waste collections which are below Brighton and Hove City Council’s expectations for the service.

Matters improved after an independent report by barrister Aileen McColgan, she said, but had deteriorated again in recent months.

At the cabinet meeting on Thursday (15 May), Councillor Sankey said:

“Over the plast 18 months we have seen direct sabotage of vehicles, threats to life, intimidation and the same bully-boy tactics.

“Last year before a particularly bad period of disruption, the GMB Sussex Twitter account warned of ‘chaos’ coming to Brighton directly before we saw further deliberate defecting of vehicles.

“While this tweet was hastily deleted after it was reported to police, we’ve never had any explanation from the GMB branch of what kind of chaos exactly?

“Was it the sort of chaos that compromises workers safety – the very opposite of what any law-abiding and decent trade union branch is supposed to do? If so, that is gangsterism and not trade unionism.

“The list of criminal or unacceptable behaviour is long. Last summer, a depot manager’s car tyres were slashed along with sickening direct threats to their life and the lives of their family members.

“My promise to fellow councillors, colleagues and residents – and, indeed, those who still seem determined to undermine our service – is simple. We will not bow down or buckle in the face of such appalling behaviour.

“Each act of sabotage or intentional disruption to our service just makes us more determined to stamp it out.”

Councillor Sankey added:

“I know how hard so many of our colleagues in environmental services are working to turn things around.”

Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for net zero and the environment, told the cabinet that he was at the Hollingdean depot every week and went out with a different crew at 4am once a month.

In the months after the investigation became public in 2023, collection rates improved.

But in the first quarter of this year, missed collections more than doubled to a three-monthly average of 1,369 from 573 in the final quarter of last year.

Outside the meeting, Councillor Rowkins said:

“When you look at the trends and the data of missed collections, they reduced very dramatically indeed, by about 90 per cent, in the immediate aftermath of publishing the (McColgan) report.

“And they rose again equally dramatically when we started implementing the recommendations from that report.

“That does indicate or at least suggests that deliberate action does have a role to play in the disruption that we’ve seen.”

Some of the problems have been blamed on the fleet of ageing bin lorries. Councillor Rowkins added:

“There’s no getting away from the fact the fleet is very old and in need of modernisation.”

Seventeen vehicles are more than 10 years old and 13 others are older than the recommended operational lifespan of seven years.

He said that five 26-tonne bin lorries and five smaller vehicles for use in narrower streets were on the way, having been budgeted for in the council’s capital programme.

Five jetwash vehicles were also on the way to support the street cleaning and graffiti removal teams.