COUNCILS must end rubbish pay for refuse collection workers or face more strike action, Unite the union warned today.

The intervention, which coincided with the start of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) three-day annual conference in Bournemouth, comes as the union continues to fight five industrial disputes across the sector. 

Strikes in South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Bristol, Selby and Cumbria all involve wages, either due to private outsourced companies attempting to boost profits or austerity-hit councils being unable or unwilling to properly remunerate workers, the union charged.