Refuse workers in Leeds are taking action in response to an appalling attack on their wages and conditions - the sort of thing we may well see more of as public sector workers are forced to pay for the bank bail-outs. Socialist Appeal supporters in the region have produced a leaflet in support of the workers, the text of which we reproduce below:

Refuse workers under attack!

Massive pay cuts will be resisted!

Refuse workers in Leeds are facing unprecedented and disgraceful attacks on pay and conditions. Workers across many departments, including graffiti cleaning and needle disposal, are facing pay cuts of more than two thousand pounds per year. The worst cuts, however, are reserved for the bin crews, who stand to lose a staggering five thousand pounds from their annual pay packets!

Not content with slashing pay, council bosses are also increasing workers’ hours and altering weekend working arrangements.

No worker can absorb such a huge loss of income! It’s nearly a third of these workers’ wages. All this whilst senior management face no such cuts – indeed, many have granted themselves large pay increases, whilst expecting ordinary workers to stomach impossible losses.

The union has offered to make big concessions regarding ‘modernisation’, including workers taking on greater responsibilities, but their only reward has been pay cuts. Now workers have had enough!

Union stewards involved believe the real issue is privatisation: Leeds City Council wants to make the refuse service more ‘attractive’ to profiteering companies wishing to take it over. This is a sad repetition of decades of creeping privatisations and attacks on public services. That this should continue after 12 years of a Labour government is an absolute disgrace.

Like all attacks on the public sector, the end result will be a worse service for the public. But this does not matter to the private companies waiting like jackals to swoop in – all they see is profit. This fight belongs not just to refuse workers, nor only to public sector workers, but to working people everywhere who will bear the brunt of service reduction and cost-cutting. People can help support the strike by refusing to cooperate with whatever blackleg crews the council can produce – don’t put your rubbish out!

The recent victories at Lindsey and Visteon show what can be done when workers stand together. Workers across the public sector are coming under attack, facing cuts in pay and conditions, and the ever-present threat of privatisation. We cannot face this threat divided – public sector unions must look to organise united public-sector action! The Leeds refuse workers are showing the way – union leaders must get behind the strike and give it their full support!

The Labour Party needs to remember that it is the working class who set it up, and the unions who support and fund it today. Why do we do this if all we get in return is support for the very bosses who are attacking us? We call on Labour councillors in Leeds to show their support for the strike, attending the picket-lines and standing shoulder-to-shoulder wit h workers on strike. We demand the Leeds Labour Group commit to abolishing these pay cuts as part of its programme.

Only democratically-run, locally accountable public services can guarantee decent conditions for the workers and service for the public. It’s time for Labour to put this in its programme!

·         All-out action until all pay cuts are reversed!

·         Support the workers in struggle – don’t put your bins out for scabs to collect!

·         Union leaders to give full support to the strike!

·         Public sector workers must come together to fight the threat of cuts and privatisation – for coordinated public sector action!

·         Labour to put workers, not bosses, first – Labour councillors to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with workers in struggle! Leeds Labour Group must pledge to reverse all pay cuts once in power!

·         No to privatisations, expensive consultants and bullying management! For publicly-owned, locally-accountable and democratically run public services, as part of a planned economy, providing jobs and good conditions for all!

To find out what Socialist Appeal are doing in this area: