Conservative Group Leader, Cllr. Geoffrey Theobald, is calling on his Labour opposite number, Cllr. Warren Morgan, to use his Party’s strong links with the GMB Trade Union to call off the strike action by refuse truck drivers that is doing so much damage to the city’s reputation.
The strike action, includes a ‘work to rule’ which has resulted in rubbish piling up on the streets and bins not being collected, posing a major public health hazard. The strike action has been carrying on for a week with no sign of either the Council or the GMB backing down.
Despite the local Labour Group stating that improving the refuse and recycling service will be their number one priority if they take over running the Council in May next year, not one of the Party’s 3 parliamentary candidates, nor their Council Spokesperson on the Environment has issued a public statement on the strike.
Conservative Group Leader, Cllr. Geoffrey Theobald, said:
“Even the Green Party Leader has at last joined me in coming out in condemnation of this strike yet here we have Cllr. Morgan, who says he hopes to become the Leader of the Council next May not uttering one single word to try and get this resolved. His one and only intervention was, as usual, to score party political points over the Green Party.
How can they be trusted to implement the reforms to the
service that are so desperately needed when they are so inextricably linked with the trade union that keeps on bringing the workers out on strike? It is a massive conflict of interest. They would gain much more respect if they used their links with the GMB to try and resolve the situation which is what I am urging Cllr. Morgan to do.”
