Latest news with #GMBunion
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Death threats and slashed tyres as Brighton's battle of the bins turns toxic
The threat, if not explicit, was thinly veiled. Written in capitals, it had been left on a car parked outside the home of a waste-depot manager. The car's tyres had been slashed. 'Leave the case alone. Brakes next,' it said. 'Nice dogs by the way.' It may sound like a scene from a Sopranos-style mafia drama, but the threat was not made in mob-run New Jersey – the note was left in one of the most liberal, bohemian cities in England, where a battle over who really controls the bins is threatening to spill on to the streets. The threat marks a low point in the decades-long bin saga in Brighton, which flared acrimoniously back into life this week. The story includes death threats, lorry sabotage and slashed tyres, accusations of 'gangsterism' and counter-allegations of union bashing, equal-pay claims and strikes, stashed weapons, police investigations and dropped charges. For Brighton and Hove's 278,000 residents it has also, more mundanely, meant hundreds of missed bin collections. The row between Brighton and Hove council and GMB union, which has a strong presence in the city's main waste depot, resurfaced after a council report revealing a 140% increase in missed collections over the last six months blamed an outdated paper-based system, spending controls and an ageing fleet. But there was something else. The report referred to 'toxic behaviours' by a small coterie at the council's Hollingdean depot, including managers having their tyres slashed, 'ongoing sabotage of council vehicles' and 'intimidatory acts both in the workplace and at managers' homes'. It added: 'A death threat was made as recently as January 2025.' And there were other eye-popping claims made in a letter to staff at the depot this week, seen by the Guardian. 'We have seen video footage of a manager's home being intentionally picked out and stoned by a masked man,' wrote the director of the service. Another employee had been found dealing drugs using council vehicles and phones. A small number of individuals were to blame, said the director, but added: 'It is not isolated. It is coordinated. It must stop.' On Thursday, Sussex police said it was investigating a series of reported offences from 2023 to 2025, including criminal damage, possession of offensive weapons, harassment and arson. Some investigations had concluded other offences were continuing or at an early stage. Ch Supt Rachel Carr said the reports were 'of a very serious and concerning nature'. In a post on X, GMB's Sussex branch condemned 'any action that would harm the health and safety of our members and to the public', adding: 'All our members want to do is to empty bins and keep the streets clean for the residents of the city of Brighton and Hove.' So, what exactly is going on in Brighton? In a small, strip-lit office in the council's unlovely 1970s Brighton and Hove town hall, Bella Sankey, the council leader, has an air of steely pugilism. 'It's fair to say that there has been dysfunction and malpractice in our waste collection service over several decades,' she says. 'What's also clear is it is possible for the service to run really effectively.' Asked if there is a battle happening here on the south coast, she replies: 'I think that's an accurate description. To me, it feels like a mission.' When Sankey became the first Labour majority leader in 2023, she was presented with 18 whistleblower accounts from the Hollingdean depot. Six months later, Aileen McColgan KC, whom she commissioned to investigate, published an explosive report. More than 70 witnesses gave 'appalling accounts' of a 'toxic' workplace where shouting, threats of violence, and sexual and racial harassment were endemic. Managers said they were called, among other things, 'a bunch of wankers' and 'effing cunts' and subject to threats of stabbing. Those accused were either GMB reps or among 'a group of around 10 white men' protected by them. The report sparked a search of GMB's office at the depot, where a stash of weapons, including nunchucks, baseball bats, knives and a samurai sword were found. Managers told McColgan that 'everything' had to be run by the union to avert strike threats and that politicians who had received GMB funding sat on appeal panels and would 'unashamedly just reverse' decisions to dismiss GMB members who had been sacked for misconduct. McColgan found that managers and the council had been 'unable to respond appropriately to the behaviour [because] of the threat of industrial action and a (reasonably) anticipated absence of political support'. Politicians are now barred from dealing with appeals, says Sankey. Council leaders meet regularly with both GMB and Unison, another union with a presence in the depot. On a less significant but perhaps telling note, GMB union reps are no longer entitled to their own office or a parking space at the depot. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion When the McColgan report was published, GMB, whose general secretary, Gary Smith, cut his teeth as an organiser in Brighton, said the behaviours and language described in the report were 'unacceptable' and that the union was investigating and would face down 'discrimination and bad behaviour'. But GMB argued that the report contained unsupported statements, failed 'the basic test of fairness' and lacked the voices of those accused of misconduct. Some of those who worked at Hollingdean say they are still suffering the consequences of that period. 'It was horrific, like working in a minefield,' says Eleanor*, a former waste operative. After making a complaint, she says she was harassed to the point that she felt scared to leave her house and finally left her job and relocated. 'I was suicidal at one point, I wanted to walk into the sea,' she says. Ella*, a former manager at the Hollingdean depot, says part of her is still broken. 'It led me to leave my career utterly burned out and afraid,' she says. Since the publication of the McColgan report more than 40 people have left the service and missed collections were down by 90% in the four months after its publication – before the recent spike. Despite improvements at the depot, a small group are still using 'bully boy' tactics, says Sankey. She says that some instances of vehicle sabotage occurred after a now deleted post by the GMB Brighton Sussex branch in February last year, which warned that 'chaos is set to hit the city of Brighton'. At the time, GMB said the deleted tweets were under investigation, with a spokesperson adding: 'We wish to reassure the people of Brighton that this tweet does not reflect the views of the GMB union.' Sankey says she has had no response to a request for the results of that investigation. 'If by chaos that tweet meant putting staff lives at risk, then that is gangsterism, not trade unionism,' she says. GMB's regional secretary, Gavin Davies, says Sankey's comments are 'inflamatory', 'unhelpful', 'extremely disappointing' and 'very poorly timed'. Refuse workers need unions, he argues: 'They carry out a hard, dirty, dangerous job that we all rely on.' The union wants to 'forge a positive working relationship' with the council, he insists, but it is failing to engage with a multimillion-pound equal pay claim the union lodged last August. 'It's frustrating our attempts to work with the council on issues such as equal pay keep falling on deaf ears,' he says. Sankey is adamant that she is a full-throated trade unionist – she was a member of GMB but left after the McColgan report was published – and says the council will always look at claims and seek to work with recognised unions to resolve them. 'I'm a massive believer in the power of unions to protect the human rights and dignity of people at work,' she says. 'But unions are supposed to provide checks and balances and prevent abuses of power. They have to deal with people who abuse power and undermine the dignity and the safety of workers.' The last 18 months have been bumpy, she says, but she is determined to carry on. 'I will not stop until my staff are safe and our residents can rely on regular collections,' she says. Asked who will win the battle of the bins in Brighton, she doesn't hesitate: 'I will.' * Names have been changed.
BBC News
27-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
'Critical failings' at Highland home care service, says watchdog
The Care Inspectorate says vulnerable patients were put at "risk of harm" due to "critical failings" at NHS Highland's Care at Home service in Sutherland. Medication was administered incorrectly, with patients needs often neglected at a Highland care service, according to a new follows concerns raised last month by the watchdog. NHS Highland previously said it had developed an action plan that it is trying to implement as quickly as possible. It has been approached for further comment. The Care Inspectorate has issued the service with an improvement notice, with changes required or it would recommend the cancellation of the service's registration. In its new full report on the service, the watchdog said managers were warned about "unworkable rotas" which led to visits being missed and families not being staffing levels were also described by workers as a "nightmare", and inspectors said the needs of clients were often watchdog judged all elements of the service to be either unsatisfactory or weak. It said there had been "critical failings in leadership". Earlier this month, the GMB union said workers repeatedly warned Sutherland Care at Home Service managers that visits were being missed or cut short due to "understaffing and unrealistic schedules".
BBC News
16-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Sellafield's plutonium treatment plant build reaches milestone
The construction of a plutonium treatment plant has reached an important milestone as its roof was sealed with concrete, making the main building roof of the Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant (SRP), in Cumbria, has been sealed with a concrete pour meaning the building can now be fitted with infrastructure and equipment. The government said in January that the plant, when complete, would dispose of 140 tonnes of radioactive plutonium - currently stored at a secure facility at the said it aimed for the building, which was one of its "largest and most complex construction projects", to be in operation by 2029 until 2060. Hazardous material The UK has the world's largest stockpile of the hazardous material, which is a product of nuclear fuel has been kept at the site and has been piling up for decades in a form that would allow it to be recycled into new nuclear January the government said it would put 140 tonnes of the hazardous material, currently stored at Sellafield in Cumbria, "beyond reach" making it ready for permanent disposal deep the GMB union previously said plutonium should be considered "a national asset, not a liability". Sellafield said the project would "play an essential role in managing the UK's plutonium stockpile".The roof slab took 12 weeks to complete, with more than 2,700 cubic metres of concrete being poured and pumped to heights of up to 30m, a spokesman said."The Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment Plant is one of our largest and most complex construction projects."Once operational, the plant will retreat and repackage existing material into more durable, long-term storage packages, ensuring they can be safely stored into the next century and beyond," the spokesman said. 'Pivotal moment' Project director John Leslie said it was an "extremely complex major project to deliver" but he was "delighted we've reached another pivotal moment in the delivery of SRP".Engineering apprentice Louis Twentyman said it was "amazing seeing it progress and to be part of it all – I can't wait to say I helped to build that"."Not everyone gets to work on projects of this stature and where there's something interesting and exciting happening every day." Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
14-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
UHI Perth principal resigns after calls to step down
The principal and chief executive of UHI Perth has resigned from her post at the Margaret Cook, who held the role for eight years, faced calls to step down following "extreme" financial challenges at the Perth told BBC Scotland News earlier this month it was operating within an increasingly challenging financial environment due to rising college is part of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) network of colleges, specialist teaching centres and research institutes. It has about 7,000 students and about 500 teaching and support Cook had been urged by the GMB union and local MP Pete Wishart to make way for a new her resignation, Dr Cook offered "sincere thanks" to college staff for their hard work and dedication to students. UHI Perth said it had accepted the resignation with immediate Wylie, interim chairman of the management board, said a temporary principal and chief executive was expected to be appointed for a period of up to six said: "UHI Perth, like many other institutions in the education sector is facing an extremely financially challenging landscape, where rising costs are not matched by corresponding increases in funding. "We are working hard to mitigate financial challenges and set a clear path for our sustainable future."Mr Wylie said the college was recruiting students for its autumn intake, and applications remained open. Pete Wishart, SNP MP for Perth and Kinross-shire, said Dr Cook's resignation was the right said: "It has been clear for some time that Dr Cook had lost the confidence of the entire UHI Perth community."Nonetheless, I would like to thank Dr Cook for her service over the years."Fresh leadership and a new vision present the opportunity to implement a proper financial recovery plan to get things back on track."Keir Greenaway, GMB Scotland senior organiser in public services, said new leadership at the college had been needed for some time. Financial pressures Mr Greenaway told BBC Scotland News: "Our members have been voicing serious concerns around the management culture and governance for many years now but been ignored."Their voice should have been heard then and must be heard now. It is beyond time for their concerns to be properly addressed."He called for GMB Scotland to be represented on the board of the college, and said new leadership should be part of a wider review of college Perth is one of a number of Scottish universities and colleges looking at ways of cutting back on spending in response to financial week, the University of Aberdeen announced plans to change the courses it offers, with less popular subjects facing possible cuts under a savings is aiming to address a £5.5m budget gap.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why the Left won't learn when the Right is right
It can be melancholy to be right about something when others are wrong. It makes you unpopular at the time and often unbearably smug when you are later vindicated. The problem is acute in politics when the Right is right. The Left tends to be more censorious than the Right and therefore thinks that anything emanating from the Right must be morally wrong. (The Right more often regards the Left as impractically idealistic rather than evil.) Once the Left labels a view 'Right-wing', it permits itself to disregard that view. A classic case was the refusal of Western governments to consider the Wuhan 'lab leak' theory as the origin of Covid-19, simply because Donald Trump was its noisiest advocate. A much earlier one was the refusal to admit that Britain could not for long remain within the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System – the forerunner of the euro. We joined in October 1990. In the summer of 1992, the prime minister, John Major, declared that departure would produce 'fool's gold'. We fell out, all the same, that September. The trans issue is also a case in point. The Right (which did not, until recently, include most of the Conservative leadership on this subject) took its stand on reality: your sex is a biological fact that cannot be altered by wishing it so. So long as it was predominantly crusty old conservatives who said this, public policy debate was able to evade this key issue of fact. Then feminists, often Left-wing, bravely took up the matter. As campaigners for recognition of women's rights and identity, they were angry at trans women who, as they saw it, parodied their sex by adopting it. Only then did the dam of public debate belatedly break. There has been a similar, regrettable delay about net zero. Again, the Right – though pitifully few at the top of the Conservative Party – took its stand on reality. It did not deny that climate change was an issue. Rather, it argued that the policies being proposed to arrest it were ineffective, unnecessarily expensive and dangerously insecure. Following a timetable which could not be met, it added, would also cause great damage. These warnings are being progressively vindicated, as the public becomes much more aware of the issue because of the vast, net zero-driven rise in energy costs for households and businesses. As we get acquainted with the price of electric vehicles (even when subsidised), the inadequacy of heat-pumps, the precariousness of power supply, and the disappearance of jobs dependent on fossil fuels, we grow alarmed. But for the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, to admit these problems would seem tantamount to becoming 'Right-wing'. Given his ambitions, he would almost rather die. Even Sir Keir Starmer, who is marginally more cautious on this topic, sees climate-crisis language as essential to his political identity, distinguishing him from semi-fascist 'climate-deniers'. Only a few brave souls on the Left, like Gary Smith of the GMB union, challenge the orthodoxy. Yet, as a matter of plain fact, this Labour Government will not hit its net zero targets and will have to modify them. The cost of delay in recognising that the Right is right can be stupendous. The Climate Change Act became law 17 years ago: the public admission that the policies are failing is only just beginning. What is the next example of this syndrome? I would say our acceptance of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, especially in relation to immigration. Every government that evades this issue, and therefore fails to control immigration, will be punished by voters. The Right was saying this as early as the 20th century. When the Second World War was ending in April 1945, my uncle, an injured prisoner of war, was liberated. Shortly before VE Day, he was flown to Britain in an American Dakota. With his first sight of England, he recognised his family house, near the Sussex coast, distinctively visible because of its fields and old garden walls. 'That's my home down there,' he said to the American Red Cross sergeant. 'Gee bud,' came the reply, 'do you want a parachute?' Eighty years on, it is sad to think that, thanks to Donald Trump, the American offer of a metaphorical parachute, and the allied friendship that goes with it, may be withdrawn. If it is, a third great European war, which then goes global, seems likelier than ever before. Thinking of which, I note that, this week, Vladimir Putin signed a decree renaming the airport of Volgograd, 'Stalingrad International Airport'. He has added that veterans of his current 'special military operation' in Ukraine would like the city itself to be renamed Stalingrad. He says he favours the idea but purports to be consulting local opinion. The name change is a repeat of history. In 1925, Volgograd became Stalingrad for the first time, in honour of the Soviet Union's then fairly new all-powerful dictator. Under this name, and with Stalin now in charge of his country's resistance to Nazi invasion, Stalingrad became world-famous in 1942-3 for the titanic battle fought there between the German and Soviet armies. The Soviets, though at terrible cost, were the eventual victors. In 1961, with Stalin eight years dead and his personality cult cancelled, Khrushchev's Soviet government restored Volgograd to its original name. In 2025, the rehabilitation of Communism's biggest ever murderer proceeds, with the rehabilitator no slouch at murder himself. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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