The Horror Stories of Agency Workers

 Agency Worker Binman Dies while sick on the job

UNTIL recently when the Unite union passed a policy decision last year the union had no proper policy on the employment of agency workers.  In January 2018, a scandal occured in Greater Manchester in Bury Council's waste depot at Bradley Fold when a manager and an agency worker was in a scuffle following a dispute in which the boss had dismissed the agency worker's appeal that after 8-years working full out as a refuse worker for Bury Council he should be taken on full time.

The local police were informed about the incident when the manager sporting a black eye contacted them.  Following further inquires the police asked the branch secretary for a crime number but Human Resources at Bury MBC said the refuse manager, Glenn Stuart, had reported the incident and only he could supply the crime number and Mr. Stuart faled to reply to a union request for more information on this case.

The agency worker had told the local Unite branch secretary that the police wer reluctant to act because it was only his word against the manager and there were no other witnesses as the incident occured in the office of the manager and the blinds were down.

London Death of a Binman

On the 25th, July, a 45-year-old man became ill while labouring on a shift on a Veolia refuse lorry whe temperatures hit 37C.  The man, who has not yet been named, working for only his second day on the job collapsed while emptying bins in Thornton Heath, south London.  Private Eye reports that the man 'wasn't a Veolia employee, but had been hired in as cover from an agency.'  Also neither Veolia nor Croydon council made any public statement about the death until they were force to do so by the local media.

Local anecdotal reports from the staff of Veolia has suggested that the lad had been feeling unwell and had rung up his spervisors to ask if he could go home,  It is alleged that he was warned that if he didn't finish his shift, he wouldn't be given further work.

Despite this a later announcement  issued to the Croydon Guardian newspaper by Veolia now contradicts the earlier statement.  Veolia's new story has been changed to say that the agency worker was taken ill 'without warning'.  Private Eye reports that so far Veolia's PR word spinners have refused to explain why they changed their story.

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Lovely Black Eyes & Agency Workers

by Brian Bamford
 Health & Safety in the Waste Manager's Office?

PEALS of laughter greeted the announcement at a meeting of the Unite Greater Manchester Activists last February, that a waste disposal manager had ended-up sporting a black-eye after an interview with an agency worker at Bury Council's Bradley Fold Waste Depot.  Last January an agency worker had been querying his own status, having been 8-years a temp working for Bury MBC on insecure tenure and unable to get a mortgage with a wife who’d just given birth.

The complaining agency worker, who'd done an 8-year unsecure stint, told Northern Voices that Mr. Stuart had claimed in justification that there were agency workers in other local authorities in Greater Manchester who had done up to 15-years as agency workers.

No-one knows for sure what took place next in the office of the waste manager, Glenn Stuart, but there seems to have been an altercation which resulted in a complaint to the police on the 23^rd, January from Mr. Stuart who ended up with a black-eye. Northern Voices contacted the Greater Manchester Police in April, and asked if the police were investigating this as an allegation of common assault and requesting the crime or log number on this case?

Although it's clear that this case was reported to the police it seems that it turned out to be 'one person's word against another', because we're told that Mr. Stuart keeps the blinds closed in his office.

The secretive Mr. Stuart has a thing about privacy, and doesn't like the fact that in 2016 some folk in Bury took to photographing the town's overflowing bins.  At that time on May 1st, 2016 The Mail on Sunday journalist, Martin Delgardo, reporting on the management style of Stuart in a headline wrote: 'Bin tsar who slashed collections to one every THREE WEEKS tries to crack down on opposition by banning photographs of overflowing bins'.


However, after the 'violent' incident at Bradley Fold, a letter was sent out to binmen and other members of staff reminding everyone of the importance of health and safety and the Council's commitment to a safe environment.  There is talk of a 'them and us attitude' in the Bradley Fold waste depot, and some cynics among the workforce are muttering about a cover-up as to what really went on behind the Venetian blinds of the waste manager's office last January.

As the headline 'Bin Tsar' in the Mail on Sunday report in 2016 above suggests, Mr. Stuart has a reputation as something of a zealot in the realm of rubbish collection, which he seems to covert.  

As the Mail on Sunday stated he was then warning that he may get tougher still to force the people of Bury into recycling, saying:  ‘People have been given ample opportunity to fall in line. We need to formulate a plan of action in terms of enforcement.’

The scheme’s opponents claimed it had led to an increase in rat infestation.   With Iain Gartside, leader of the Conservative group on Bury council, saying:  ‘It’s an absolutely disgrace, with overflowing bins and increased fly-tipping.’

Meanwhile in last week's Bury Times the leader of Bury Council, Labour Councillor Rishi Shori said:  'Fly-tipping is a growing problem in the borough, although the council has allocated additional resources to tackle the problem in three main ways, focusing on prevention:  the installation of CCTV cameras in fly-tipping hotspots, enforcement and, where possible, by removing fly-tipped items, although this is becoming increasingly more difficult due to the budget pressures we are under.' 

Recently we can't help but notice that the 'installation of CCTV cameras in fly-tipping hotspots' has had the consequence of shifting the flytipping from the town centres and urban areas of Bury to the more posh, leafy zones like Tottington and Stubbins.  No wonder the Tories are upset.

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Bury Bin Boss Bans Bad Publicity!

Daily Mail reports on how Labour Council Clamps Down on Truth

HE is the man behind the UK’s first three-weekly rubbish collection service, a scheme that has left angry residents picking their way through stinking heaps of refuse. 

And now Glenn Stuart, waste ‘tsar’ for Bury, Greater Manchester, has revealed how he cracked down on negative publicity for the controversial scheme – by trying to stop photographs like (the one below) of the town’s overflowing bins.

Mr Stuart’s positive spin on his unpopular decision has gone down well in the waste-collection world.  At a conference in London last week, he was applauded by local authority executives as he boasted:

‘Any problem was nipped in the bud.  We didn’t allow photographs of overflowing bins.’

He claimed this had been achieved by showing families how to deal more efficiently with their rubbish.

But campaigners said the Labour council had tried to banish damaging images by warning people that only those bins where the lids closed fully would be emptied – a threat that had forced some families to keep rubbish indoors until the dustcart’s next visit, or take it to the tip themselves.

And despite Mr Stuart’s attempts to impose a positive spin, local activists have shared with The Mail on Sunday these pictures of Bury’s rubbish piles, two years after the scheme was introduced.

Jason Turner, who organised a 6,000-signature petition against the idea, said:

‘The council has duped the public all the way along and this latest news smacks of a cover-up. I’m all in favour of recycling but I’ve been making several trips each month to the tip since this scheme started. I’m doing the council’s job for them.’

Last night, an unrepentant Mr Stuart warned that an emptying service every three weeks – already adopted by other councils – would soon be standard practice across Britain, adding:

‘I have had lots of requests for information from colleagues in other authorities.’

And he warned that he may get tougher still to force the people of Bury into recycling, saying: ‘People have been given ample opportunity to fall in line.  We need to formulate a plan of action in terms of enforcement.’

The scheme’s opponents claim it has led to an increase in rat infestation.  Iain Gartside, leader of the Conservative group on Bury council, said:

‘It’s an absolutely disgrace, with overflowing bins and increased fly-tipping.’

Despite Mr Stuart’s attempts to impose a positive spin, local activists have shared the above image with The Mail on Sunday of one of Bury’s rubbish pilesRead more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567680/Bin-tsar-slashed-collections-one-THREE-WEEKS-tries-crack-opposition-banning-photographs-overflowing-bins.html#ixzz47bjt5PZs
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567680/Bin-tsar-slashed-collections-one-THREE-WEEKS-tries-crack-opposition-banning-photographs-overflowing-bins.html#ixzz47bdC1gdS

Bury MBC Boss's Boob Ban at Bradley Fold

Unite Union Reps Rejected at 'near miss' Health & Safety Confab

 

THIS morning two Unite union officials, Steve Acheson and Lee Lomas, a Unite branch secretary, Brian Bamford, and a former shop steward, Dave Lord, were shown the door at a health and safety get-together called by Glenn Stuart, Head of Waste management at the Bradley Fold Waste depot of Bury MBC.   The meeting had been called at 6.45am prompt by Mr. Stuart to consider the findings of a Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into a 'near miss' reversing incident by a refuse vehicle.

 

In his wisdom Mr. Stuart thought it better that the Unite union officers were not present at the event, at which, he said that he 'needed to communicate these (findings by the HSE)' to the workforce.  The inspector from the HSE had been to Bradley Fold on the 7th, November, to speak to Mr. Stuart, and had interviewed the driver and operative who had been involved in the 'near miss' incident in which a lady putting her wheelie bin out had come close to being run-over.

 

Fully suited and standing teetering acrobatically on a chair Mr. Stuart treated his staff, all garbed in their yellow high-vis jackets, to a sermon on safe working practices while his sturdy colleague and right-hand man, Terry Nieland, solemnly guarded the door.  The memorandum from Glenn Stuart reminded his men that:

'This is classed as mandatory health and safety training and it is therefore vitally important that everybody working on the collection service attends the briefing.  A register will be taken.'

 

Perhaps Mr. Stuart was too nervous to have the Unite union reps. present in the room when he gave his treaty on safe working; after all he may well have fallen arse-over-tit off the chair on which he was so deftly standing, and how would that have looked?  In his way he was only setting an example, for he often expects his staff to be equally acrobatic when they go about their rounds.

 

As for the poor lady who nearly got squashed by the bin-wagon, it seems that she was so incensed and put out by the poor unsympathetic staff response when she called-in to give her complaint, that she felt the need to go to the HSE.  One can well imagine some of those sympathetic functionaries in the public relations office saying: 

'What do you expect, if you don't get your bin out before 7am sharp, you always run the risk of being run-over by a bin wagon.'
 

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The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale at all our usual outlets in the North of England and beyond - see below. This issue N.V.14 has a Tameside Eye story about how Tameside has a history of involvement in blacklisting, it also contains an interview by Barry Woodling with George Tapp - the Salford electrician injured in May on an anti-blacklist picket. The Voices has been in the forthfront of the campaign against the blacklist since 2003 and the DAF dispute at Manchester Piccadilly, its editor, an electrician, was on the blacklist of the Economic League in the 1960s, and there was an attempt to blacklist him while he was working in Gibraltar in both 1964 and 1967, but at the time this intervention by the Foreign Office was resisted by the Gibraltarian authorities, and the Gibraltar Transport & General Workers Union.
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