The bin strikes scheduled to clash with Brighton Pride look likely to be called off formally in the next few days.
The three party leaders on Brighton and Hove City Council are due to meet at 8am tomorrow (Wednesday 24 July) to discuss a proposal to avert the strikes.
And the leaders of the local GMB union are expected to share the outcome with members at the Cityclean depot in Hollingdean on Thursday morning (25 July).
If things go to plan, GMB members will be asked to call off the strike that was planned to start next Monday (29 July).
If not, the union is expected to submit further strike dates to follow on immediately after the strikes scheduled for the Pride weekend, when big crowds are expected.
Tomorrow morning political leaders are expected to agree that GMB union rep Dave Russell can return to work at the Cityclean depot from Friday (26 July).
Council chiefs wanted Mr Russell to have restricted access to the depot – and to work elsewhere – while claims about him were investigated.
The council and union bosses have already agreed for an independent outsider to look into the claims – and that work has started.
Without a settlement, binmen and street cleaners are currently due to go on strike over the Brighton Pride weekend at the start of next month.
The GMB union has already given formal notice to the council of its intention to strike, with the first day of action planned for Monday.
An overtime ban will also run through to Monday 5 August and – without a deal – workers will go on full strike for four days from Friday 2 August to Monday 5 August inclusive.
Vehicle workshop and maintenance staff at Cityclean, the council’s rubbish and recycling service, will also go on strike on Tuesday 30 July and Thursday 1 August.
The meeting tomorrow – of the Policy, Resources and Growth Committee Urgency Sub-Committee – at Hove Town Hall follows a similar meeting at short notice the week before last.
The Conservatives were believed to have been the only party to back the GMB position last time.
It is believed that the Labour council leader Nancy Platts has shifted her position to avert the strike and to try to find a solution acceptable to all sides.
None of those involved in the meeting or from the GMB was able to comment.
This will be fantastic if it comes off, and if Ms Platts actually’can do’ it, that would be great. The general public, who are most affected and have been kept completely in the dark about what has been going on, would be very relieved. For myself, I struggle physically to take the rubbish to the communal bin along the road (I fall in a hole between being formally disabled or not, so can’t get a disabled collection). I used to recycle religiously, but thanks to the abolition of black box recycling in my street (one size fits all, even though I have somewhere to store it, as have many of the people in my street), I now just dump all of it in the general rubbish because the recycling communal bin is rather uphill and glass has to go somewhere else uphill, which is too much for me.
So, actually, this is a plea to Rachel Chasseaud, who is the council official in charge of the rubbish, to make all of this collection rather easier and more joined-up for those who struggle to cope with the present system but fall short of the criteria for assistance.