Bin bags and Christmas trees around some Broughton wheelie-bins were uplifted by CEC today (9 Jan.).
But the wheelie-bins themselves remain full to bursting. More adjacent pile-ups seem inevitable.
A local newspaper suggests dustmen are causing delays to refuse collection by raising frivolous concerns about safety. It claims this is a response to CEC's latest move in the ongoing pay dispute, and is effectively industrial action by other means. The Evening News very carefully quoted Director of CEC's Services for Communities to this effect in its 8 January edition (p. 5).
However, in a CEC statement seen earlier by Spurtle on 6 Jan., CEC explicitly asserted that its own supervisors had cancelled refuse collections because of (presumably valid) health-and-safety concerns.
Spurtle is investigating, but early indications suggest negotiators on both sides of the industrial dispute – and the Evening News mischievously mixing it from the sidelines – are all skating on thin ice.
For now, we ask readers to suggest any UK employer apart from CEC which could think itself justified in expecting outdoor staff to operate for long periods in sub-zero temperatures without appropriate (employer-provided) clothing.