Work changes threaten council deal
SIPTU official Con Casey yesterday said the first they heard of changes in working arrangements was at Monday night's crunch meeting, which decided to save the council by a 10-2 vote.
The cash-strapped council, which is being undercut by private waste contractors, agreed to continue its waste collection for nine months with some changes, as outlined by acting town engineer John Sheehan.
There will be just one collection crew, with the equivalent of 3.5 staff, and a change to a tag system for customers.
Mr Sheehan said if a crew member went sick, he would not be replaced and there would no overtime payments under a 'tasked to completion' system, which meant staff would be paid the same for doing the job whether they finished early or late.
His disclosure prompted audible sounds of disapproval from council binmen in the public gallery.
Mr Casey yesterday said it would be "completely impractical" not to replace someone who went sick.
"Whilst we welcome the council's decision to stay in waste collection, the mechanics have not been put past us in any way and there have been no negotiations," he said.
Mr Casey said there would also have to be talks with the council.
Though the council availed of a final chance from Environment Minister Martin Cullen to stay in business 90 minutes short of the midnight deadline on Monday the package depends on a number of assumptions.
Only 2,532 bin customers have signed up with the council for the first quarter of this year. The council will need an extra 800 customers in the next month to succeed. The council had 6,500 bin customers, but many have switched to private collectors who are charging around E270 per year compared to the council's E340.
Council manager Willie Wixted said the success of the package depended on the support of Tralee people, who are being asked to return to the council's service. The package also provides for the retention of all council staff, but there may be some redeployment.
Town clerk John Breen said E30,000 has been knocked off the E97,000 budget for cleaning up indiscriminate dumping and E10,000 had been pared off moneys set aside for public toilet maintenance. He said cuts could not be made to such labour-intensive services without repercussions.
Meanwhile, councillors were angry that two competing private waste collectors in Tralee, had been granted discounts of up to 20%, reduced to 6.5% last year, on charges for depositing waste at the Kerry County Council landfill in Muingnaminnane.
The discounts do not apply this year: the same charges are being applied to be both private and local authority services.
