Lismore City Council workers will rally outside the Council Chambers ahead of tonight’s Council meeting at which a proposal to privatise waste services will be debated.
Members of the public are invited to join the rally, which is being organised by Council workers and the United Services Union.
Lismore City Council staff with a newly painted waste collection R U OK? truck. Photo supplied.
The rally will commence at 5pm outside the Lismore Council Chambers at 43 Oliver Avenue, Goonellabah.
The union is campaigning to retain Lismore City Council’s waste services operation in the face of a report recommending that it be outsourced.
The Council has included a motion to outsource waste service jobs on the agenda for tonight’s Council meeting.
Union members employed at Lismore Council have told the USU they want to keep their jobs and are prepared to fight to make sure Council dumps this proposal.
USU General Secretary Graeme Kelly said: ‘Lismore Council workers have been backing the community up, putting in a huge effort over the past few years to make sure the huge amounts of rubbish generated by flooding has been collected and they will continue to do the best for their community.’
‘These workers don’t deserve to be pushed onto the unemployment queue. We want the Council to keep these local jobs in-house.
‘We are calling on Councillors to reject this unfair proposal and find other ways to deal with the impact of past poor decisions on waste operation, like its decision to sell off plant and equipment.’
‘Hard-working Council workers don’t deserve to pay the price for poor Council decision-making of the past.’
Anyone care to claim that outsourcing and privatiisation have saved any government money or provided better service over the past 30 years?
Another ideological move by whom? The Mayor and his lackeys? The Executive Staff?
Our council outsources projects to the local contractors. It’s cheaper, faster, and the infrastructure actually works. Our local public pool is now run by a fitness franchise, and for the same entry fee, we have modern gym that plays non-stop techno music.
The waste services workers are amazing however the current council is correct to conduct a full review, over the last 6-12 months the level of service and number of times that bins are missed has been extremely poor, our bins even got run over by the garbage truck and it took 3 weeks to get replacements delivered!
we need the review, hopefully privatisation isn’t the answer however it may have to be if it can’t be fixed up.
that is a fairly ideological statement, have you experienced the level of service over the last 6-12 months with the current public run waste service in Lismore? its never been worse….I agree that privatisation should be avoided if possible however something needs to change.
Negotiation is about compromise, and meeting the other party half way. Just drive your garbage down to the local council office, and wheel it inside for them. Maybe you could put it outside the mayor’s house so that he could deal with it for you before going into the office. It’s nice to be helpful.