Bromley binmen: Strike dates announced

12:16pm Thursday 6th December 2012 in Bromley By Robert Fisk

Bromley binmen: Strike dates announced Bromley binmen: Strike dates announced

UNITE union has announced the first strike by Bromley binmen will take place on December 14 and they will then hit the Christmas collection period.

After the one day strike in eight days time the workers, who are employed by Veolia Environmental Services, have agreed to strike on 27th, 28th and 31st December.

They are striking over the sacking of four colleagues for gross misconduct.

The men were fired after they took away garden waste for a woman – which is forbidden as they are only allowed to collect household waste.

Bromley Council, which pays Veolia to collect household waste on its behalf, says the garden waste included 14 large bags and some chairs and weighed around 400kg.

Are you worried about your rubbish not being collected because of the strikes? Have your say below.

Comments(18)

mareen says...
12:50pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Well, now we know the dates of the strike action that the borough have created in the first instance, do we have to watch this space to see what alternative arrangements will be made by the council to ensure that rubbish will be collected not to mention the knock on effect of the days of action. Perhaps all directly employed council staff with appropriate licences to drive the refuse carts should don the yellows and get behind the wheel and with a little luck we will have snow,sleet and persistent rain so that they get a real feel for the job.

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jan13she says...
1:08pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Wont make a lot of difference, they never do their job correctly anyway, I have lost count the number of times I have had to ring up the Council because they have forgotten to empty my bins.NO XMAS TIP THIS YEAR.

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Chrisbitz says...
1:29pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Before any binmen get all high and mighty about taking any "special" or unusual rubbish, everyone knows that if you offer them a drink, they'll take anything.

Lets not pretend anything else happened?...

Maybe sacking was a bit harsh, but their bosses also have to be seen to be being strict with the official rules too.

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DJHMOTT says...
1:57pm Thu 6 Dec 12

The only alternative arrangement will be everyone loading up their cars and creating a mile long queue outside Bromley Tip. But then most people do over Christmas due to the sheer amount of packaging to get rid of.

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Slonik says...
2:13pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Whatever waste we have will just have to wait until the binmen get back to work. I won't be losing any sleep and won't be doing their work for them either. I'd be very careful if I were a binman though. There are going to be plenty of people with an axe to grind who might now feel inclined to record and report any 'lapses of professionalism' they witness. That wouldn't be good for morale would it...

Don't let Mr Union-Man lead you up the garden path...

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bnorther says...
2:30pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Slonik wrote:
Whatever waste we have will just have to wait until the binmen get back to work. I won't be losing any sleep and won't be doing their work for them either. I'd be very careful if I were a binman though. There are going to be plenty of people with an axe to grind who might now feel inclined to record and report any 'lapses of professionalism' they witness. That wouldn't be good for morale would it...

Don't let Mr Union-Man lead you up the garden path...
Too right. I was sworn at by one of them a while back for asking him to pick up some rubbish the spilt all over the pavement.

I think I may start videoing their useless unprofessional antics down our street from now on, that way it will not be their word against mine.

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Polly Staight says...
2:32pm Thu 6 Dec 12

So I expect that Bromley Council (Refuse department) are all running around trying to organise a working and efficient collection system!

Or maybe not.

If not, will ratepayers be retaining part of their payment, bearing mind the service being paid for is NOT being delivered?

Perhaps we could organise a Christmas party outside the town hall, we could bring along our Christmas trees and our wrapping paper and our selection boxes and the other stuff, and arrange it (neatly) at the door.

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Slonik says...
3:55pm Thu 6 Dec 12

bnorther wrote:
Slonik wrote:
Whatever waste we have will just have to wait until the binmen get back to work. I won't be losing any sleep and won't be doing their work for them either. I'd be very careful if I were a binman though. There are going to be plenty of people with an axe to grind who might now feel inclined to record and report any 'lapses of professionalism' they witness. That wouldn't be good for morale would it...

Don't let Mr Union-Man lead you up the garden path...
Too right. I was sworn at by one of them a while back for asking him to pick up some rubbish the spilt all over the pavement.

I think I may start videoing their useless unprofessional antics down our street from now on, that way it will not be their word against mine.
No you know Mr Union-Man would deny that any of his members would ever do such a thing don't you... lol

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mareen says...
4:36pm Thu 6 Dec 12

The men did wrong, there's no doubt about that however sacking them is more than harsh. Is this the real issue or is it that LBB have used these men as scapegoats to secure their £60 per annum charge for taking garden waste in the future.

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goodwork says...
10:00pm Thu 6 Dec 12

**** right its harsh, shoulnt have done it and no doubt took a 'drink' for it. But lets remember the binmen are employed by contractors for LBB, so less of the nonsense rebate on your council tax rubbish... Or how would you like your 20 or so pence paid back to you... In effect the business he worked for lost a couple of quid. Big woop, a final warning would have sufficed.

As for bnorthers comment regarding being sworn at, I have little doubt that this is probably due to the manner in which he spoke to the worker. People seem to thinks its okay to talk to public sector workrs like they owe you somethings or the equally tragic 'i pay your wages' type statement. Most people do not swear at others unless prompted.

I support their action in this case. Anyway people need to get used to it, with the council forcing through significant and potentially detrimental contract changes to staff, strikes at bromley have a fair chance of being the norm!

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kasab says...
10:29pm Thu 6 Dec 12

The simple question is do these four men deserve to be sacked? Anybody who sat through the process, heard all the evidence and was aware of the mitigating circumstances can only answer no. No evidence exists of any money changing hands. The resident herself has given evidence on two occasions to say that she was to blame, that she placed pressure on the binmen to take the rubbish away. The four had clean disciplinary records and the employer itself has admitted that they are regarded as hard working and committed. Between them, they have 100 years service. All four conducted themselves in an exemplary manner during proceedings. Incredibly, once the evidence was given at the disciplinary meeting, the manager in question took 5 minutes to make his mind up before dismissing the four, indicating the decision was pre determined. But games are being played. Veolia claim that the dismissals must stand because the Council demands it. The Council denies this to be the position. For our part, we have offered both Veolia and the Council a way forward. This has been turned down, so I will go on record as saying that in return for the four being reinstated, Unite will work with the employer to avoid the situation happening again. A line should be drawn, a joint statement made by both the union and the employer as to what is and what is not acceptable as far as taking away rubbish is concerned. In future, all parties would then be clear and having issued a joint statement, publicly, both sides must abide by it. A simple way forward, that would get four good workers back on the beat and avoid a strike on this same issue in the future. We are committed to resolving the dispute. I will therefore, as the Unite Regional Officer, make the offer again officially on Friday morning.

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mareen says...
11:02pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Whilst I have an open mind about union activities, it is in circumstances such as these that much needed protection of the union is needed, this is a situation that any of us could be faced with one way or another. Not many of us are so perfect that we have never put the odd pen in our pocket, made a phone call at the company's expense and how many of us out there have called in on the occasional sickie, all of these are theft one way or another. These men did wrong by policy which can't be denied but a warning would have sufficed making it clear that any further offence of this kind would result in dismissal. Yes, the binmen do at times miss a bag, yes they do sometimes leave some rubbish strewn on the floor but surely we have all made mistakes and not performed as we should, did we expect the sack, heavens no. Did these men take a back hander, that's for them to know and us to wonder, what would we have done faced with that sort of thing, don't know. I hope that these men are reinstated with a lesson learned.

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mareen says...
11:31pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Further to my previous comment I would suggest that 99.9% of LBB residents have included an item that should not have been in their rubbish bag albeit a few leaves swept up or remnants of a bunch of flowers, the odd bottle or plastic carton. Does this mean that we shouldn't give the men a Xmas gift in appreciation of their labours throughout the year just incase we have included in our bin bag such items that giving them a Xmas tip could be contrued as a bung for them to take a suspect item resulting in them being sacked. Who brought this to the LBB's attention, was it one of their own snoops or the nosey neighbour with a grudge.

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dag says...
11:57pm Thu 6 Dec 12

Oh well back to burning all the rubbish again like we had to do in the past when the dustbin men were on strike. Can't say it will bother me at all. Before anyone has the chance to moan it'll be done at dusk!!!

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plasticfantastic says...
10:44am Fri 7 Dec 12

I expect they will get overtime so they can catch up!

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madras says...
11:12am Fri 7 Dec 12

Can I just be controversial for a minute and say that I think our bin men do a good job?

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bnorther says...
11:16am Fri 7 Dec 12

goodwork wrote:
**** right its harsh, shoulnt have done it and no doubt took a 'drink' for it. But lets remember the binmen are employed by contractors for LBB, so less of the nonsense rebate on your council tax rubbish... Or how would you like your 20 or so pence paid back to you... In effect the business he worked for lost a couple of quid. Big woop, a final warning would have sufficed.

As for bnorthers comment regarding being sworn at, I have little doubt that this is probably due to the manner in which he spoke to the worker. People seem to thinks its okay to talk to public sector workrs like they owe you somethings or the equally tragic 'i pay your wages' type statement. Most people do not swear at others unless prompted.

I support their action in this case. Anyway people need to get used to it, with the council forcing through significant and potentially detrimental contract changes to staff, strikes at bromley have a fair chance of being the norm!
I can assure you that I didn't talk to the bin man in a "i pay your wages way"

I wouldn't have need to talk to him if he had executed his job in a professional manor.

And for the record, we weren't talking about 1 tin; it was about 1/3 of a green box full that fell onto the road, that the binman walked off and left, which I then cleared up.

Like I say - next time I'll video it, and post it on youtube so that the everyone can see what some of these binmen are like.

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goldenbroomboy says...
10:00am Tue 11 Dec 12

mareen wrote:
Further to my previous comment I would suggest that 99.9% of LBB residents have included an item that should not have been in their rubbish bag albeit a few leaves swept up or remnants of a bunch of flowers, the odd bottle or plastic carton. Does this mean that we shouldn't give the men a Xmas gift in appreciation of their labours throughout the year just incase we have included in our bin bag such items that giving them a Xmas tip could be contrued as a bung for them to take a suspect item resulting in them being sacked. Who brought this to the LBB's attention, was it one of their own snoops or the nosey neighbour with a grudge.
Nobody has yet mentioned that Bromley Council charge £25 per item to remove waste, & the cheapest "Man with a Van" types will charge about £75 (and usually such types will try to add "extras" especially if they are dealing with elderly ladies).

I agree completely with your last line, I am left wondering who was the snide creep who grassed on the binmen for helping out an old lady?

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