A Load Of Rubbish

Thursday, June 14th, 10pm: Brighton’s local dustmen have just emerged victorious from a wildcat four day strike that saw 240 dustmen dismissed, the depot occupied, the machines sabotaged, anarchist practical support provided (without too many lefty parasites to annoy), direct action, and lots of links forged.

SITA, a French multinational, took over the refuse contract in November 1999 and the management’s attitude was a problem from day one. On Monday, new street cleaning measures were introduced that the workers knew were impossible - voicing this got them sacked. The rest of the 240 workers were promptly called back in by the GMB union reps to protest this, and they all got sacked, too. Quick thinking and organising (and ignoring the official channels) resulted in the depot being occupied by the dustmen who immediately began rallying support. Some of us from the Anarchist Teapot collective went down and got them food, blankets, and a computer. Local anarchists joined in actions such as successfully stopping the scab lorries leaving their depot on Wednesday the 13th by locking on to the axle, and harassing the agencies that were providing scab labour (by the end of the dispute, there wasn’t one agency in Brighton up for this anymore).

SITA were given a 48 hour deadline to sort it out, which they couldn’t - and talks between the Council and SITA resulted Thursday evening in an agreement that can only be seen as an amazing victory. SITA’s contract will stop in 11 weeks, all the workers are reinstated - including full pay for the week they spent occupying the depot!, the new measures are withdrawn, and all further decisions are to be made at weekly meetings with equal say from SITA, the Council and the union. The workers are seriously considering the possibility of bidding for the contract as their own non-profit-making workers’ cooperative, and have begun liaising with Magpie, the local recycling workers’ coop, over this.

Some of us who have been involved over the last few days will be putting together a leaflet on how the dustmen won their strike, to encourage other SITA workers - get in touch if SITA works your hometown.

Anarchist Teapot, c/o 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton BN2 2GY