Canterbury bin strikes set to continue until October after workers reject 'final' pay offer
WATCH: ITV News Meridian's Kit Bradshaw reports from Canterbury
Bin strikes in Canterbury in Kent are set to continue until October, after workers rejected a "final" pay offer for the second time.
Dozens of staff employed by Canenco - Canterbury City Council's own waste collection company, walked out on 5 July.
Three separate pay deals have since been rebuffed, with the last now voted down twice following a second ballot on Wednesday.
The GMB union, which represents the workers, says the industrial action has been extended until 1 October as a result.
It means recycling bins across the district will continue to go uncollected as the remaining crews focus only on household and garden waste rounds.
GMB members on strike want £15 an hour for drivers and £12 for loaders.
The latest offer meets their pay demands, but the deal on the table comes with two caveats.
The first is that any pay hike will not be implemented until January next year, and the second that workers will no longer be able to clock off early after finishing their rounds.
Bosses at Canenco say the policy - known as 'job and knock' - will have to end if it is to find the £300,000 it says it needs to fund the rises.
The money would be raised by cutting the use of agency staff, with permanent employees picking up bigger rounds as they work their full contracted hours.
Council bosses say the offer meets the workers' demands in full and reflects working practices - and pay - in neighbouring districts.
They add that the January implementation of the uplift is again in line with other areas, and has been accepted by the GMB elsewhere in Kent.
But last week 98% of GMB members rejected the offer, and this morning a second vote against it was unanimous, with workers snubbing what the city council's leader has called "a good day's pay for a full day's work."
It followed further talks yesterday involving the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) - a government body acting as mediators in the dispute.
Initial negotiations last week were said to have been "cordial", with members yesterday hopeful of receiving a new offer.
But GMB regional organiser Frank Macklin says this week's talks "wasted everyone's time", as members were only asked to vote again on the same deal.
Mr Macklin claims Canenco - through Acas - was "practically begging" binmen to return to work. "Were they ever taking it seriously?" he said.
"We believe it was just them doing a tick-box exercise just to say they've done it. This time round we've had a resounding 100% rejection of that offer. Members are very angry and frustrated that the company has done what it's done."
Mr Macklin added that the pay offer starting only from January was "not good enough."
He also argued that through bringing "job and knock" into the negotiations, the council is "trying to stir up ill feeling between the public and the bin workers," by suggesting binmen are lazy.
"Unless there's movement from the council it doesn't look like these guys show any signs of cracking or going back to work for the foreseeable," he said.
Members of Unison - the recognised union at Canenco - previously accepted an offer of £14.45 and £11.61-an-hour respectively, which has been applied to all workers and backdated to April, including GMB members.
Canterbury City Council leader, Cllr Alan Baldock, told ITV Meridian: "We want to implement that pay rise in January, as Ashford and Swale have agreed with the GMB to do exactly the same in those two boroughs.
"We need some time between now and the end of the year, to implement some changes in the way the service works – that releases the case so we can pay for the pay rise."
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