Bin claims 'would cost £60m and 2,000 jobs'

CITY leaders today said that giving in to union demands over the bin dispute would cost £60 million and mean up to 2,000 redundancies across the council.

Depute council leader Steve Cardownie accused the Unite union of being unwilling to work with the administration to resolve the dispute over controversial pay changes.

He said Unite's alternative proposals for bringing pay structures into line with gender equality laws were simply unaffordable without massive job losses.

The union hit back, however, saying the council was only willing to put in half as much money as other Scottish authorities to sorting out equal pay problems.

Refuse collectors have been operating a work to rule for the past three weeks, which has seen bins going uncollected and rubbish piling up in the streets, and Unite is now set to ballot hundreds of city staff on strike action.

Cllr Cardownie said the council was looking at "contingency plans" which would be announced depending on the outcome of the strike ballot. He said: "We have a solution to this dispute, and our door is open, but we are very disappointed that Unite don't want to work with us."

The dispute centres on plans to abolish the long-established bonus system which sees binmen paid a standard £7,000 on top of their official basic salary of £12,000, which is also supplemented by overtime. Instead, the council says it wants to bring in a basic salary of about £15,000 with a further £4,500 on offer in return for "flexible working", which would end the need for significant overtime payments.

The council says the union's alternative – consolidating the current bonus into basic pay and bringing other workers up to the same level – is not practical.

Cllr Cardownie said: "The unions agree we can't go on with our current pay system. It needs to be fair for the sake of staff and to protect taxpayers' money from millions of pounds worth of equal pay claims.

"The unions' solution would add £60m to our annual wage bill and could see up to 2,000 staff made redundant, and that's on top of the £90m savings we need to find in the next three years as a result of the savings required by the UK government."

But Sandy Smart, regional organiser of the Transport and General Workers' section of Unite, said: "I'm amazed Steve Cardownie has the cheek to and say this. We are not asking for a pay rise – we're just wanting to have the same wages we're getting.

"In every other authority in Scotland there has been six to 12 per cent of the total pay bill put in to resolve this – adjusting bonuses, shift payments and overtime allowances. Edinburgh is only willing to put in three per cent.

"They have been more interested in new seats for the City Chambers and robes for Jenny Dawe.

"We're happy to meet, but there is no point in going into a meeting if they are not prepared to deal with us properly and seriously."

• Householders are being advised to leave their bin out if it is not collected on the normal day and it should be collected it as soon as possible. Trade waste customers are advised that if waste is not collected, to remove it from the kerbside and re-present it on the next scheduled collection day.