Possible industrial action by bin collectors in Kirklees could have been averted.
The Examiner reported last week how bin crews were considering a vote over new shift patterns.
It was claimed the new 10-hour shifts, worked over a four-day week, left bin crews being forced to take risks and cut corners to get rounds completed.
Previously bin crews operated on a “task and finish” system where the quicker they finished their rounds the sooner they could go home.
But new larger rounds and a change to four-day working meant crews had a bigger workload, often meaning some bins went unemptied at the end of the day.
The bin workers’ biggest union Unison had been ready to ballot members on a work to rule. One binman described the system as trying to “achieve the unachievable.”
Now union leaders have spoken to management at Kirklees Council and a compromise has been offered.
The union’s Kirklees branch secretary Paul Holmes said the management had agreed to changes to help crews which fell behind.
If a crew did not finish its round another crew would be brought in to help.
The changes would be tried out for a period of two months if union members agreed. The proposals will be put to a vote over the next week.
Mr Holmes said the job of bin crews had been made harder by new tip changes and charges for tradesmen dumping at council waste sites.
Mr Holmes said some householders would “bury” rubble in the bottom of wheelie bins in a bid to avoid the cost or hassle of taking it to the tip.
Other householders bought a second bin, which they are entitled to, but without house numbers on bins crews had no way of knowing which bins belonged to which house.
“On some rounds there can be 50 or 60 more bins than there are houses,” said Mr Holmes. “Sometimes you get layers of breeze blocks dumped in a bin.
“When you start charging people to dump rubbish there’s only two outcomes. They either put what they shouldn’t in their bin or they fly-tip it.”
