GMB members at Brighton and Hove Cityclean vote resoundingly for strike action
“Even with this strong ballot result we will approach this week's ACAS conciliation hopeful of finding a solution so we can stand down the threat of industrial action”, says GMB Southern
GMB members working for Brighton & Hove City Council’s refuse, recycling and street cleansing Cityclean services have vote resoundingly to take industrial action in response to ongoing poor industrial relations brought about by rogue managerial anti trade union behaviour.
BHCC Chief Exec Geoff Raw, who is still to publicly condemn his Cityclean manager’s actions at the Brighton Hollingdean depot, is due to meet GMB together with his senior management team and ACAS on 20th June. The meeting is in hope that actual action can still be avoided through undertaking a successful conciliation process having received formal notice of the result of the ERS formal ballot.
The Ballot result returned on a 75.2% turnout, was as follows:
Prepared to take part in strike action:
Yes 87.3%
No 12.7%
Prepared to action short of strike action:
Yes 90.5%
No 9.5%
Mark Turner, GMB B50 Branch Secretary said: "GMB members have clearly chosen to support their unfairly targeted Workplace Reps and Union, recognising that this sort of attack if left unchallenged will impact upon their employment rights to be represented by the Rep of their choice and that their GMB Rep is then not targeted by rogue managers unfairly for carrying out his union role.
"The Chief Exec is totally responsible for this mess, by ignoring numerous opportunities to distance himself from some of his manager’s action at the depot.
"Members have been left with no option, because of his obvious support of anti trade union actions, but to escalate matters to the point of taking action."
Gary Palmer, GMB Regional Organiser said: "It's up to BHCC and the Chief Exec now to de-escalate the situation, but saying that he could have done exactly that months ago instead of burying his head in the sand and simply crossing his fingers that the ballot result would fall in his favour.
"Even with this strong ballot result we will approach this week's ACAS conciliation hopeful of finding a solution so we can stand down the threat of industrial action.
"We will need to either have found a solution or be positive that the work in progress is going to lead to an outcome we can all sign up to, if industrial action is to be avoided. So let's hope they are now taking this seriously."
Contact: Mark Turner 07860 787973 or Gary Palmer 07552 165950 or GMB Southern Press Office 07970 114762
