Piles of rubbish to be cleared as Tower Hamlets strike ends with pay deal
Tower Hamlets Council and Unite the Union negotiated an end to a pay dispute involving waste service workers and street cleaners.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Rubbish that had been piling up on the streets of an east London borough will be collected after striking refuse workers agreed to a pay deal offered by the local council.
About 200 waste service workers and street cleaners had walked out on September 18 following a pay dispute between Unite the Union and Tower Hamlets Council.
On Tuesday, Tower Hamlets’ Unite members in the waste service voted to end the strike after the council offered them an extra £750 and said about 50 agency workers would be brought in-house by the end of December on full council terms and conditions.
Private waste contractors will be employed by the council for the next few weeks to catch up on missed collections and street cleaning.
The council said it began employing private contractors to help with the backlog of waste following concerns from the borough’s fire commander last week that the refuse was becoming a serious safety issue.
The union members went on strike after rejecting a pay offer of £1,925, which officials said was a real-terms pay cut.
Executive mayor of Tower Hamlets Lutfur Rahman said: “We value our refuse staff and we have listened to their concerns to see how we can work constructively and collaboratively to resolve this dispute.
“Together, we will clear backlogged refuse and clean our streets as quickly as possible.”
Unite regional officer Nick West said: “The strike action inevitably caused major disruption to bin collections and street cleaning services.
“This was entirely avoidable if managers had taken the situation seriously from the outset.
“Our members were determined to secure a fair pay deal so the intervention of the mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, played a part in helping to resolve this dispute.”