Roadside rubbish swells in inner city, following waste worker strike

By ROBBIE MASON

Rubbish has built up in inner city streets, clogging footpaths, as the City of Sydney Council struggles to deal with the fallout from a recent garbage collector strike.

Lord Mayor Clove Moore explained to City Hub that “as of Friday afternoon (21 July), the collection of red, yellow and green lid bins is running to schedule”. The Council has allocated staff to do emergency pick ups. But Lord Mayor Moore also acknowledged that ongoing industrial action has continued to periodically impact garbage collection with illegal dumps, booked bulky waste and metal/white good collections still clogging city streets.

Concerned residents have inundated some councillors with complaints. Liberal Councillor Shauna Jarrett said she receives “numerous emails every day about the build-up of roadside garbage and the Council’s inability to deliver basic services”.

Prolonged industrial dispute

Earlier this month, waste workers from the Hillsdale Depot, who service the City of Sydney local government area (LGA), went on strike over poor pay and working conditions, leading to the City of Sydney Council issuing a public warning about “temporary delays” in waste collection.

This was the sixth strike this year by garbage collectors. The Transport Workers Union of Australia (TWU) and waste contractor Cleanaway have been locked into contract negotiations for over eight months, causing repeated industrial actions.

In a letter to the Council on 6 July this year, TWU blamed Cleanaway’s “repeated and blatant disregard for their employees’ wellbeing and workplace conditions.”

The union has said that Cleanaway wants to limit overtime entitlements and extend rosters, meaning workers will have less pay and additional work over weekends. Cleanaway had a $49 million profit in the last half of the financial year.

Lord Mayor Clove Moore has stated that she is “seriously concerned” by the length of enterprise bargaining negotiations and supports the rights of workers to take industrial action.

A spokesperson for the Surry Hills Business Alliance described the standard of rubbish collection in the LGA as a “disaster”, especially around Elizabeth Street and the side streets that branch off from it.

“What we’ve noticed is an increase in rats and cockroaches,” the spokesperson said. “The smell is terrible. The fact that Sydney can look like this is a disgrace.”

The spokesperson labelled the rubbish debacle “a health problem” and “a problem in terms of visitors coming to Sydney seeing garbage all over the streets.”

Following Vivid Sydney and the beginning of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Sydney has experienced a heightened level of international attention and an influx of tourists in recent weeks. This scrutiny has made waste collection issues in the inner city especially pronounced.

Labor Councillor Linda Scott – the only councillor to oppose the outsourcing of waste collection in the LGA, a decision of the previous Council – described the affair as a “global embarrassment overshadowing Sydney’s World Cup events.”

“Residents and visitors shouldn’t have to wade through uncollected rubbish to celebrate soccer success in our streets.”

“It’s simply unacceptable that the Lord Mayor continues to refuse my requests to hold a community meeting about this matter, and continues to refuse to meet the workers when she has met the company representatives,” she continued.

Independent Councillor Yvonne Weldon demanded better from the Council. She told City Hub, “since I was elected to Council, I have received countless calls from those in the community who are regularly experiencing delayed and missed collections.”

“Industrial action certainly throws a spanner in the works, but it’s important to note that this is a symptom rather than the cause of the problem. Waste service in the City of Sydney have been failing the community for quite some time now”.

Cr Weldon has suggested the Council take a more active role in streamlining negotiations between TWU and Cleanaway.

“Outsourcing waste services doesn’t absolve our duty of care to ensure workers have safe and fair conditions,” she said.

Councillor Adam Worling, a long-time resident in the inner city, said “I have witnessed more people picking through garbage bins to find cans and bottles for the refund scheme, presumably due to the increased cost of living.”

“Quite often, this process causes rubbish to spill on the streets, and it gets blown away or trapped in garden beds, to be later picked up by Council workers.”

Cr Worling asserted that staff work “hard and fast” to clean streets.

“Last week, for example, there was an enormous amount of garbage strewn across Waterloo Street in Surry Hills. I walked past it while walking my dog, and by midday when I was back there for a meeting, it was clean,” he continued.

“The council didn’t create this mess – someone locally did – but City of Sydney acted swiftly to clean it up. I’ve seen this happen time and time again.

Council has limited power to rectify rubbish situation

It appears that outsourcing waste collection to a third-party contractor has sidelined the Council. Councillors and the TWU have urged Lord Mayor Clover Moore to intervene and meet with TWU representatives, but the Lord Mayor has indicated that the Council cannot interfere in negotiations under the contract it signed with Cleanaway.

The Lord Mayor said she has met with Cleanaway representatives to discuss contract and service delivery issues. She established in that meeting an “expectation” that workers will receive “fair pay and conditions”. But Lord Mayor Moore has now come out saying “enough is enough”.

“It is now time for both parties to go to the Fair Work Commission to resolve this once and for all – both for the Cleanaway workers and for City residents.”

A Cleanaway spokesperon said the organisation is “hopeful of a speedy resolution”.

“Cleanaway takes its responsibilities with the City of Sydney very seriously and has prioritised resolving ongoing industrial relations negotiations for some months”.

Deputy Mayor Sylvie Ellsmore said, “core Council services like garbage collection need to be directly managed by the Council, not privatised.”

The outsourcing of waste management has plagued the Council in recent years. In November 2019, 100 waste service workers walked off the job in response to inadequate consultation with staff over the proposal to outsource rubbish collection to a private contractor without a tender process.