Wealden Bin Strike Week Three: GMB Says Biffa Keep Offering Same Deal

The GMB union, representing waste collectors in Sussex, has said Biffa has offered staff the same pay deal three times.

In a tweet on Friday morning (May 14), the GMB said its members would not accept the pay deal offered:

Biffa waste today has written to our members again for the third time offering them the same pay deal they rejected before they went on strike just a little clue for the company they don’t except it that’s why they’re on strike

— GMB Sussex Branch (@GMBSussexBranch) May 14, 2022

In response, a Biffa spokesperson said:

"The Trade Union has rejected our enhanced offer which included above inflationary increases and pay parity with the other two councils in the East Sussex contract, which is disappointing. 

"We are working hard to minimise any disruption to service while GMB members continue to strike."

With industrial action by the union set to continue for another two weeks, until May 28, Wealden District Council have released a statement this morning (May 16) informing residents that half of their waste collection services will be operating today.

This is due to Biffa using agency workers or members of staff who are not striking to get waste collected as normal.

A twitter post by a GMB rep calling themselves Jo V, showed a Biffa truck attempting to leave the depot last week as a GMB representative stood in front of the truck not allowing it to pass, releasing windscreen washer in a bid to move the protestor.

Just seen this video from yesterday showing a @Biffa truck continuing to drive forward despite a @GMBSussexBranch officer being in front of it and then trying to soak them using the trucks windscreen washer...#WealdenDistrictDispute pic.twitter.com/vIMU0RTMNz

— Jo.V (@cheepchitter) May 12, 2022

The statement by the council said it was 'disappointed' that a deal had not been reached 'despite Biffa's commitment to resolve the dispute'. It added:

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 however, disappointingly the GMB union rejected the latest increased pay offer from Biffa.  This offer submitted by Biffa would have provided pay equality across the Joint Waste Partnership area of Wealden, Hastings and Rother.

The council says that GMB accepted a similar offer for Hastings and Rother in February, which enabled pay increases of between 8% and 20% for the various job roles involved in the dispute:

At that time, the GMB union regional organiser union described the settlement as a “whopping pay deal” so it is difficult to understand why they are not now recommending acceptance of this same offer, which comes with an additional performance bonus, for the immediate benefit of their members doing the same jobs in the Wealden area.  By comparison, the pay award for nurses for 2022/23 is expected to be up to 3% and State pensions are to increase by 3.1% for 2022. 

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.”

In the meantime, Wealden District Council has said the following services will operate 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

 More to follow.