Unite Union's National Lead Officer Onay Kasab has warned of national strikes by refuse workers after rejecting Birmingham City Council's "inadequate" deal.More than 95 per cent of striking Unite workers rejected the offer laid out by the Labour-run authority, despite more than 20,000 tonnes of waste rotting on Birmingham's streets.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Why did your workers reject this offer put on the table?
00:03The offer, and if we can call it an offer, is really inadequate.
00:07It deals with one very small area, it deals with a minority of people and ultimately it
00:12means a pay cut.
00:13So when the council talk about nobody needs to lose pay, it is plain wrong.
00:18The proposal that they have put forward leads to a pay cut, it really is that straightforward
00:22and that simple.
00:23But also in the proposal they fail to discuss what they're going to do with the drivers
00:26because in the negotiations they told us that they are looking at downgrading drivers pay.
00:32That goes down from £40,000 to £32,000 a year.
00:36That's around 200 people.
00:38None of that was mentioned in the proposal.
00:41So we need to know what's going on with pay for drivers as well and it's inadequate.
00:46That's why it was turned down.
00:47So you're saying now that there are two asides to this.
00:50It's not just the Waste and Recycling Collection Officer role, which is initially what this
00:53dispute started over.
00:55There's now a situation with drivers too and it's assurances for both of those before a
00:59deal can be reached.
01:00Yes.
01:01I mean some weeks ago we did let it be known that the employers in negotiations had put
01:05that on the table.
01:06That they were going to be having a go at drivers pay.
01:10We can't have a dispute where we try and resolve the worker role and then the employer comes
01:15along and says, why are we trying to resolve that?
01:18By the way, here's what we're going to do to drivers pay potentially impacting another
01:22200 people.
01:23That's not how you resolve a dispute.
01:25So now as a result of that, in order to resolve this dispute, both sets need to be sorted,
01:31both the worker role and the driver pay.
01:35Now in the offer it's thought that compensation was offered to people ranging between £7,000,
01:41for some people £16,000.
01:43Now that for a lot of people might seem like a lot of money, but why therefore was that
01:47rejected?
01:48Is it because of long term assurances on pay?
01:50Why for you was that compensation figure rejected by your members?
01:53I think two reasons.
01:54First of all, this is a lump sum.
01:57So not everybody's going to be getting the £16,000.
01:59Let's be very clear about that.
02:01It's for a minority of people, but you can take that, but then you see a sharp drop in
02:07your pay.
02:09That's the reality.
02:10So it may be pay protection for a little while, but you will then see a sharp drop in
02:15your pay.
02:16And also the fact that the driver's pay wasn't included in the proposal about what's going
02:22on there, what's happening.
02:23Because what we can't allow to happen is us say, well, look, they didn't include it
02:27in the paperwork.
02:28Maybe they're not going to do it.
02:29Let's close our eyes and ears and walk away and maybe they'll forget.
02:31Absolutely not what's going to happen.
02:33What we can't allow is a situation where we saw out the worker role, these guys go back
02:37to work and then lo and behold, driver's pay is attacked at that point as well.
02:41It's all got to be done now.
02:43And look, it is resolvable.
02:44There are solutions.
02:45Although this is a big, huge dispute with massive repercussions, it is resolvable.
02:50We have put solutions on the table and we'll go back into the meetings tomorrow and we
02:55will put those solutions again to the employer and hope that they listen.
02:58What are those solutions?
02:59Well, look, as far as the driver pay is concerned, the issue is this.
03:05Without going to all of the technicalities and going into the reeds, it's about job evaluation.
03:10It's about how you evaluate and grade a job.
03:13My question is, what is a driver doing today that he or she is not going to be doing tomorrow?
03:18So there should be no change to that grade.
03:20So just leave it, leave it alone.
03:22And as far as the worker role is concerned, there are a number of solutions and resolutions.
03:26I don't want to put all of those on camera to the media now.
03:30I want to put those to the employer tomorrow, but we can work through those.
03:34And there are reports today around situations of situations of these strikes happening across
03:40the country.
03:41What is the possibility of that?
03:43That very much depends on employers.
03:45We are not going to go looking for industrial disputes.
03:48However, if local authorities or contractors who provide refuse services for local authorities
03:55insist that they are going to cut the paying conditions of our members, then we make absolutely
04:00no apology for the fact that we will defend those members' paying conditions.
04:03Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon, giving us the point of Unite the Union and
04:08their perspective.
04:09Of course, as 97% of their members, when offered the Birmingham City Pay Deal, rejected that.
04:14And with that rejection, as you heard there, talks continue tomorrow.
04:17Meanwhile, this dispute continues.