Industrial action by some UNISON members employed by Huntingdonshire District Council is due to start on Monday 21 August and to run until Friday 25 August.
Most services will run as normal with Planning, Housing, Environmental Health, Leisure Centres and many other services continuing to support residents.
Refuse and Recycling services will also continue but in order to deliver these statutory services, (which we have to provide by law), we have had to make the difficult decision to suspend garden waste and bulky waste collection services this during the period of industrial action.
This means there will be no garden waste and bulky waste collection services from 21 to 25 August. Collections will resume from Monday 28 August.
Residents are asked not to put their garden waste bins out for collection during the period 21 to 25 August (inclusive). Instead, you should wait for their next collection day from 28 August onwards.
As our bulky waste service is a bookable service, during the period of strike action, residents can still make a booking for bulky waste collections from 28 August using the online form.
When garden waste services do resume, as usual waste crews will not be able to accept excess garden waste as we are unable to accept garden waste in sacks.
Dialogue with UNISON on the ongoing pay dispute will continue and any changes to service delivery will be publicised as soon and as widely as possible. Residents are advised to use this website, which will be kept up to date with the latest information The planned action follows unsuccessful annual pay discussions with UNISON.
Council staff have received a 4% pay award for this financial year along with a further £1,000 one-off award to all contracted staff in March.
The council has a offered a further payment to be made in December which would result in all contracted staff receiving at least the Real Living Wage in 2023/24. This addressed one of UNISON’s core requests, but this proposal has not been accepted to date.
Cllr Martin Hassall, Executive Councillor for Corporate and Shared Services, said: "We have made the commitment to rewarding staff fairly, and offering other benefits, whenever we are able to do so. Currently we are waiting to hear if our pay proposal is accepted, but if industrial action does go ahead, we have plans in place to minimise disruption to our frontline services.
"While we believe the majority of our services will be unaffected, some services may have to be prioritised at the expense of others and we would ask for the public’s patience. If there are any additional changes to services, then we will communicate these via our website and social media.
"Currently, we expect industrial action to primarily impact our garden waste and bulky waste collections with all other services running normally. Our focus has to be on prioritising household waste as this is statutory service.
"Again, we thank residents for their patience during this time and we continue to work to seek a solution that results in UNISON withdrawing their planned action. Any updates will be communicated to residents as soon as possible."
We will have a dedicated FAQ page with a host of information, and this will be updated for the duration of the industrial action with all the information people need on any change or disruption to services. The industrial action FAQ page with more information will be available in the coming days.