Refuse Collectors Strike in Leeds

[birdie1971]

Refuse collectors have now been on strike for over a month, causing a growing mountain of cr*p to accumulate on the streets of Leeds.

http://www.yorkshiree...ews?articleid=3414653


The dispute is about equal pay – in order to bring men's pay in line with women's pay, the Council propose to cut the men's pay in order to bring it in line with an “equivalent” job done mostly by women – school canteen worker. This will mean a drop in pay from between £3,000 a year to £6,000 for the (mostly male) refuge collectors.

Thoughts?

[trt]

I have a few friends in Leeds, they tell me its disgusting and rats are appearing on the streets and roads.

I cant see how they are supposed to take a deduction of £3,000 to £6,000 a year.

[birdie1971]

Ooops!

The link above is for a story in 2007...

However, the strike is happening now...

http://www.crossgates...Council-to.5770163.jp

And this link is dated 19th September 2009...

http://www.dailymail....cil-leaders-home.html

Despite my original mistake and the none contemporary nature of the second link, the strike continues...

[birdie1971]

Trt – I saw a news item on it earlier this evening – it looks pretty bad.

[Haggisdj]

I work in local government. This is happening all over the country. Organisations are scared of no-win-no-fee lawyers working on equal pay issues. Women, quite rightly, want the same pay as men for doing the same work... unfortunately, organisations are cutting the men's wages to bring them into line with the women's instead of the other way round.

[ummmm]

School canteen workers and refuge collectors. Are these jobs equivalent to each other? I wouldn't say so.

[flip_flop]

Frankly, this is bollocks.

Women would have equal pay to the bin men if they chose to work on the bins with them. For the council to consider an 'equivalent' job to a bin man to be a dinner lady is comparing apples with pears - they are not the same.

Whilst I have a great concern about the massive amount we pay in council tax, to arbitrarily cut wages in this manner is simply not fair, so despite being right of centre and generally not agreeing with strike action, I have to say I've got a fair amount of sympathy for them. They had to do something to try and stop this, and if strike action is their only recourse, then I'm not surprised they have taken this action.

However, here's the rub (and I don't know the answer) - whilst I think the action being taken by the local authority is wrong, I also believe it would be wrong to simply increase the wages of the women for the simple reason that we pay too much council tax as it is.

[ummmm]

They shouldn't increase the wages for the women.

[tamborine]

Isn't this an opportunity for an enterprising mind to earn an income.......how much would you pay to have it cleared privately?

Jobs begging for 'man with van' it seems.

[buildersmate]

There's something deeply wrong with what is happening in Leeds. There are long-established processes (Job Evaluation is just one) for working out the equivalence between different job titles.
If a job title is 'Bin Man/Woman', the employer has to pay at the same pay band for both men and women.
Every local authority I've ever come across links job titles to a set of pay grades. If the issue is equivalence between the job title of 'Bin Man/Woman' and 'Clerical Assistant', then Job Evaluation sorts it out - and it decides what pay grades each job title should be on.
If Leeds are saying all Bin Men/Women should be on the same pay grade, that is right. How they implement that is a management / budget issue, but it is either higher local taxes for Leeds residents or sharing the same size pay pot more equally.

[birdie1971]

This whole thing is a farce in my opinion. We’ve had the Equal Pay Act for almost 40 years now. The disparity between male and female pay has been systematically swept under the carpet by successive administrations up and down the country. Heads should roll – but they won’t.

How the Local Authority in Leeds thinks that the average bin man/woman can stand a pay cut of up to a third is beyond me.

Maybe they should slash the top chief executives’ salaries by a third to help make up the shortfall?

I won’t hold my breath.