But for Tory and Lib Dem intransigence, a damaging dispute could have been settled weeks ago, says Rachel Reeves
A victory for common sense and fairness was heralded in Leeds last week. On the cusp of the bin strike’s 12th week, refuse workers in Leeds have accepted a pay offer which protects their income and rules out privatisation.
The strike started back in early September, when refuse workers walked out after the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition that controls the council used equal pay legislation to cut the pay of bin men by £4,500 from an £18,000 salary.
The justification was to bring their pay in to line with low-paid women working for the council. In reality, the council leaders were hoping to privatise an essential public service, motivated by ideology rather than the best interests of the city or its workers.
Rubbish piled up for four weeks before the council would even begin negotiations with the GMB and Unison. If the council had been willing to talk and to listen, this dispute would have been resolved weeks ago. The council leadership’s attitude to the strike was demonstrated when Richard Brett, the Lib Dem alternate leader of the council described a £4,500 pay cut as “notional”. For bin men and their families, a 30 per cent loss of income is hardly anything so minor. Brett’s comments show just how out of touch Leeds City council is.
That it has taken 12 weeks to reach a settlement is appalling – and reflects the indifference of council leaders to calls from across the city to get a grip on the situation.
People in Leeds want a council that can stand up and support them in the recession and provide decent public services for taxpayers. And that includes those living in poorer areas of the city who were
largely ignored by the contracted bin replacements in favour of easier-to-navigate affluent suburbs.
As the bin men return to work, we should reflect on the costs of the strike. The virtual failure to collect any waste for recycling will expose the council to additional costs for the use of landfill as residents stopped recycling. There is a risk that the city’s habit of recycling will have been set back by the interruption. The council’s policy has cost it credibility and cost the taxpayers money.
The stance taken by Leeds City Council towards this strike should be heeded as a warning that a Conservative government or Tory-Lib Dem coalition at Westminster would quickly seek to exploit such central pillars of legislation as equal pay for cost-cutting schemes. Such ideological zeal would most affect the lowest paid. But events in Leeds have shown that there is no public appetite for such crude political ploys.
At the Conservative Party conference, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said that he wanted a pay freeze for the top public sector workers. However, in Leeds, what we have seen from the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition is an attack on the poorest. Osborne’s “age of austerity” means austerity for low-paid, public sector workers, not austerity for his friends in the City or the boardroom.
Whatever cost-cutting measures the next government has to implement after the general election, a Labour administration would not allow low-paid workers to bear the brunt of balancing the budget. Equal pay must mean fair pay, not a race to the bottom.
Rachel Reeves is Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Leeds West
