7 August (Part 1) - A Summer of Stink
It has been ages since there was any sort of tip off from a friendly Councillor. I haven’t a clue of the outcome of the complaint
against Councillor Danny Hackett after he was on the receiving end of a totally false
allegation by a Labour activist. She said he had been colluding with me last
August or thereabouts to publish blogs critical of said Labour activist. Not
true because I hadn’t heard from Danny all Summer and everything written about the
troublemaker had been gleaned from publicly available Twitter posts.
It is the same this year. Danny gets busy with his charitable works and the last
time I heard from him was on 9th June when he enquired about the health of a
mutual friend. Then, yesterday I received the shortest of messages from a
Councillor - not Danny - which said there was a “significant amount” of good work being
done behind the scenes aimed at ending the bin strike. Tantalisingly there was
no clue as to what it might be and residents are so used to the lies emanating
from Bexley Council and @bexleynews in particular that even if the details had
been forthcoming would anyone believe them? Does Bexley still use the fatuous slogan ‘Trusted by Bexley Residents’.
More useful was the suggestion that I trawl Facebook for bin comments; so I did.
There
are suggestions that the strike has been made worse by the economically
catastrophic pingdemic favoured by the “spineless twat”
(†) but on balance I was drawn towards Paul Webber’s theory that the Unite union is on a mission to end outsourcing.
Their stated mission to give Bexley residents A Summer of Stink amply
demonstrates that Unite is not on the residents’ side while Councillors just
might be - the pathetic political posturing of @bexleynews notwithstanding.
There will be a lot of people who think that the end of outsourcing might be
a good idea but if that is Unite’s aim it makes theirs a political strike.
In Bexley the complaint has been about pay and working conditions. Random drug
tests have been mentioned more than once but how true that might be is unknown.
There has been similar
industrial action in Thurrock
but the Council there negotiated a return to work. The union has now turned their attention to Croydon.
Click this image to read the whole post and the Croydon reference.
If Unite’s motive really is to reduce the level of outsourcing they may be fighting a losing battle.
Lambeth Council has just signed up with Serco despite the experience in Bexley. Good luck to them.
Click for source web page.
† I spent yet another rainy day with a cousin at The Oval last week. He had given Guest tickets to fellow members of his choir so a lot of new faces. Filling in the gaps between play I soon discovered that the “spineless twat” opinion is even more widespread. This will spell trouble and I am inclined to blame his missus for BJ’s inevitable downfall.