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Britain’s Mantle of Garbage​—‘Dirty Jobs’ Strike Bring Havoc

By “Awake!” correspondent in the British Isles

‘WHY shouldn’t workers doing dirty jobs get well paid for it?’ demanded unions representing 770,000 men and women in the British Isles. They hurled the challenge, demanding more pay.

Some 1,600 local authorities involved in the dispute took up the challenge by refusing their demands. These officials worried about the spiraling rates (city taxes) that would be required to pay for any wage increase.

The workers’ basic wage, according to grade, was a little over £13 to £16 (about $31 to $38). They demanded a weekly increase of £2.15.0 ($6.60), about 20 percent, plus improvements in working conditions.

The body representing the local authorities agreed to an increase of 14 percent. The workers refused, so the strike was on. Britain was entangled in the ‘dirty jobs’ issue.

With neither side willing to give in to the other without a show of strength, the land began to assume its mantle of garbage. By the end of September it was reeking with a cloak of filth.

Never before had the vital character of garbage collection been brought home so forcefully to people here. Britain’s dustmen (garbage collectors) were surely needed.

Planned Campaign

The unions involved represented workers of widely differing kinds. Ambulance drivers, municipal harbor workers, caretakers (janitors), and dustmen or garbage collectors are examples. The National Union of Public Employees, the majority union, had its plan of campaign well formulated.

If the strike impact of a given occupation group lacked effect, the leaders would order them to return to work. Then they would call out on strike another group whose inactivity might prove more devastating. Easily at the top of the impact poll came the garbage collectors and sewage men.

Quickly the waste output of around 55 million people crammed into a tiny island began to show​—and to stink, also bringing hazards of fire and disease.

Pollution and Health Problems

Piles of refuse began to line streets. A plague of flies swarming a North London area was attributed to the stimulated breeding induced by overflowing sewage at Enfield. The worst-hit places in Britain were those of dense population.

By October 5, thousands of dead fish floated on rivers as a hundred million gallons of untreated sewage slopped into Britain’s waterways. A Thames Conservancy Board spokesman with thirty years of service described the situation as “the worst I have known during my service.”

The Roman-founded town of Bath, famous for its mineral springs, lay under a threat of water rationing. Partially treated sewage, disgorged into the river Avon, promised water of a less healthy kind.

“If the failure to collect rubbish goes on for any length of time,” said Graham Don, senior lecturer in environmental health, of London University, “there will be a build-up of the rat population. At the moment we are retreating and the rats are advancing.”

At Bournemouth, one of Britains pleasant and healthy coastal resorts, rat catchers returned to duty after an appeal to deal with rats at a rubbish dump. Sewage at the town’s four pumping stations was about to spill over in the streets. Notices along beautiful South Devon’s coastline warned of untreated sewage being washed up on beaches.

Britain was unusually dry for the time of year. Now it had a new fear rain. Rain in sufficient volume would so tax the sewers that their poisonous contents would erupt into the streets and flood basements.

Encounters and Clashes

Feelings ran high among those most affected by the dispute. Tempers exploded. In one London area, dustmen besieged Brent Town Hall with sacks of rubbish. Then they pelted town officials with eggs.

Clashes between strike pickets and contractors hired to clear refuse led to injuries and property damage in Chelsea, Kensington and Shepherds Bush, among other London boroughs. Bricks shattered truck windows. A contractor hit with an iron bar was taken to the hospital.

In Tower Hamlets Borough, private contractors equipped with bulldozers arrived to clear the streets. But the strikers won the day: one look at the opposition and the contractors went home.

Strikers in some areas blacklisted firms and residents accused of clearing garbage. A union official is quoted as saying, “Those on our blacklist shall not have their rubbish collected by union men for an indefinite period when the strike is over.” A spokesman for the National Union of Public Employees said a list of more than two thousand was being prepared.

As striking dustmen walked past Territorial Army headquarters in Swindon, the army band struck up the ‘Colonel Bogey’ march. The row that ensued led to the dustmen’s promising a perpetual boycott on the headquarters. Never again, they avowed, would union men collect the local army’s refuse.

Fire Hazards and Street Barricades

In some places piles of rubbish up to twenty feet high presented fire hazards. Noxious mountains blocked some doors used as fire exits.

Guy Fawkes night, the night the land is ablaze with bonfires and fireworks to commemorate an attempt to blow up King James I and his Parliament on November 5, 1605, brought new fears. Would anarchists set fire to the many piles of rubbish? Fire watchers worked from eight o’clock to midnight watching 25,000 factories.

Tenants on two London estates piled up rotting refuse, blocking eight streets, two of them main roads. Police moved in. But as they removed one barricade tenants erected another. Trucks and workers hired to clear a 100-yard pile of garbage in Hackney ran a gauntlet of bricks and abuse from angry strikers.

Rotting, foul-smelling garbage in Hackney’s streets led tenants to stage a demonstration. Shouted one demonstrator from a first-floor balcony: “The smell and the rats are disgraceful. The council say they are afraid of ‘scab’ labor. The least we can do is to carry a bag of rubbish into the road.”

This fired the crowd. “In the road!” they yelled. Men, women and children grabbed sacks of refuse lining fifty yards of a side street and hurled them into the main road. The fire brigade crew was called to stand by.

Uneasy Settlement

November 5 saw the outline of a settlement. A record deal of £71,670,000 a year for 770,000 workers were the main terms. This will mean a weekly increase of £2.10.0 for men, £2.2.6 for women ($6 and $5.10); an 18.2-percent increase.

Overtime and bonus rates for moving the backlog of garbage now became the issue. Some boroughs paid bonuses up to £70 ($168) per man for clearing the mountains of rubbish from the streets. Arguments continued to rage in London over bonus pay.

A substantial amount of the wage increase will be met by increases in taxes.

The ‘dirty jobs’ settlement is an uneasy one. One union official exulted, “A victory of the lads.” Another, “A bloody nose for the Government.” A third, “We shall be coming back for more next year.”

Though the union regards the settlement as a victory, it nonetheless leaves the men with a basic wage quite modest by today’s standards. Dustmen carry out an unsavory task. They are out in all kinds of weather. The work is arduous. It carries health dangers since it involves filthy, disease-ridden garbage. Many regard it as a low-grade menial task. Yet the vital character of the work has been demonstrated without question. Few jobs could be shown to be more necessary in themselves.

A job with enormous drawbacks like this clearly demands offsetting compensations. In a money-oriented system wages will be the main compensation.

But there are other compensations. One London dustman, a studious man specially interested in astronomy, explained that he is a skilled mechanic but voluntarily left a secure job in a garage to become a dustman and drive the garbage truck. The reasons he gave were that it is a worry-free job, and by working hard on a given round he and his crew can finish early in the afternoon. He likes being out in the air instead of in a workshop. He can spend more time with his family and pursue his real interests. His view is that if a job is useful it is just as good as any other useful job.

Regardless of how individuals may feel about a particular job, the fact remains that the strike once again demonstrated how fragile this present system of things is. It is pathetic when the health of a community, yes, an entire nation, can be imperiled before there can be agreement on such vital matters. And as usual, the masses of people in general were the victims. Obviously, this system of things, with its political and economic arrangements, is in process of rapid decay and is not working for the welfare of all. It needs to be replaced by one that will, and God has promised that he will bring about that replacement for the entire earth.​—Dan. 2:44.