Great Yarmouth Services (UNITE) Strike Calendar

Great Yarmouth bin and street cleaning workers, along with landscaping workers and grave diggers, will strike later this week, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today. Around 100 workers will strike over poverty pay, as most earn pennies above the minimum wage. In comparison, wages for staff doing the same jobs in Norwich, Broadland and Lowestoft are 20 per cent higher. (See notes to editors for quotes from workers) Even though the council has repeatedly claimed that it could not negotiate on pay, it made an improved offer last week. However, it was insufficient for the workers to accept.

Great Yarmouth bin and street cleaning workers, along with landscaping workers and grave diggers, will begin strike action in August, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today. Around 100 workers will strike over poverty pay, as most earn pennies above the minimum wage. In comparison, wages for staff doing the same jobs in Norwich, Broadland and Lowestoft are 20 per cent higher.

Great Yarmouth bin and street cleaning workers have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over poverty pay, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today. Around 100 workers, will strike over a 3.3 per cent pay offer from council-owned Great Yarmouth Services. For the majority of workers this would not even take them to the minimum wage, which increased by 4.1 per cent in April, meaning they have been given a pay rise of nothing at all.

Before the strike vote, council officials told the workers that they should think themselves lucky with the legal minimum wage as the town is a ‘low wage, poverty area’ and that if they were unhappy they ‘should work for Sainsbury or Tesco’. During the vote, workers were falsely told they could lose their jobs if they take industrial action and that strikes would not have any impact because agency staff would be brought in – which would be unlawful. In addition, the room allocated for union business was locked with the keys reported missing when a number of meetings were scheduled. The keys were found shortly after the meetings were supposed to finish. Strike action severely impacting household waste collections, street cleaning, landscaping and grave digging services during the height of the summer season will be announced in the coming days.

Great Yarmouth Services workers are to be balloted for strike action over poverty pay, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today. The bin workers, street cleaners, tree surgeons and gardeners, the majority of who earn pennies above minimum wage, are angry at a 3.3 per cent pay offer from the council-owned company.

The offer would not even give the majority of workers a legal increase to be in line with the minimum wage, which rose by 4.1 per cent in April. When workers expressed their dissatisfaction with the offer, they were told by council officials that they “are lucky to have this as Great Yarmouth is a low wage, poverty area” and that if they are unhappy they “should work for Sainsburys or Tesco”.