CONGRATULATIONS to the Leeds Bin men!  After an 11-week strike, they have beaten Leeds City Council – LCC - who wanted to slash their wages by as much as £6,000.

The strike – which started at the beginning of September - saw around 600 Streetscene refuse workers and street cleaners walk out over the LCCs plans to cut pay and conditions.  Attacks on working conditions included changes to shift patterns (that would introduce compulsory weekend working), productivity targets and the threat of privatisation.

Hundreds of workers manned picket lines in the dispute.  The industrial action was about to enter its 12th week last Monday - 23 November - when it was announced that a deal had been reached between unions and Leeds City Council. 

This deal saw a small increase of £19 a year if the bin men made productivity and efficiency improvements.  But it was not all great news.  Around 90 Streetscene cleaning workers (who currently work a five-day week) will now have to work weekends and bank holidays.  This will be included as part of their regular shift pattern – and they will not get extra money for doing this. 

However, significantly, pay protection was also agreed up to 2011.  A mass meeting voted by 79 per cent to accept the deal.

The Lib Dem-Tory administration who run LCC originally insisted that the pay cuts were required as a way of introducing equal pay.  However, instead of levelling its female workers' pay up, it wanted to level the male workers' pay down.

This echoed the situation in the South East of England, where Brighton’s bin men had also walked out in a row over pay.  (For background information about this strike, see our news articles of 1 November – Brighton and Hove Bin Strike – and of 29 November – Brighton Bin Strike Victory!)

Here too, many female council workers had been underpaid for years.  Indeed, council officials were aware of this discrepancy for around 12 years.  However, instead of bringing everyone up to the top rate, the Tory-run Brighton and Hove City Council aimed to axe the wages of those on higher pay to get out of owing the lowest-paid a better deal. 

This time the council picked on their own in-house CityClean refuse Department for the proposed outrageous pay cuts.