Crucial vote as bin dispute nears its first anniversary

A VOTE is to be held that could finally bring the bin dispute to an end - one year after it began.

The Unite union is to hold a ballot of members tomorrow that will ask all refuse collectors to decide whether to accept a new deal that is on the table from council chiefs.

If they accept the proposals, their work-to-rule - which started at the end of June 2009 - would be ended and staff would return to normal work.

But opposition councillors say more should have been done to bring an end to the costly dispute sooner - and called for the full costs of the dispute to be made public as soon as it ends.

Councillor Andrew Burns, leader of the Labour group on the city council, said: "It is a disgrace that it has taken more than a year to end this. It takes two to negotiate and the council officers should have done so more quickly than they did.

"I would ask anyone to find another work-to-rule in any other local authority in Scotland - or even the UK - that has dragged on as long as this one has."

Refuse collectors are the only remaining group within the 600 staff that were involved in the work-to-rule that are continuing their action.

In May, 270 street cleaners agreed to accept new proposals and return to work. And they were followed in the following weeks by gardeners, gravediggers and waste disposal staff.

Council chiefs said that the gross cost of the dispute, up to March of this year, had been 5.4 million, mainly as a result of the cost of the private firms it had to bring in to assist its own staff during their work-to-rule. When savings like not paying its own staff overtime were taken into account, the total cost at the time fell to 3.1m.

Cllr Iain Whyte, leader of the Conservative group on the council, said: "It has taken over a year and there will be considerable costs involved, although some of it will be offset by overtime savings.

"I have yet to see final costs for the dispute but there needs to be a solution for the long term and market-testing should take place to see what the costs will be of the private sector taking this on."

Refuse collection is one of more than a dozen services that private firms are being asked to put in 'bids' for under the council's alternative business models programme.

Mark Turley, director of the council's services for communities department, said: "Negotiations with the trade unions have now come to a conclusion and I am pleased that union members will now be balloted on this final offer.

"The offer will improve the quality of refuse collection service and dramatically reduce the loss of earnings which staff faced.

I sincerely hope that this final offer will be accepted for the sake of our customers and also in best interests of staff."

Nobody from the Unite union could be contacted for comment on tomorrow's ballot. In a statement on its website, Unite said: "We have received final proposals for refuse collection and will be balloting members on these on 9 July 2010.".