2001 August - Steve Davies - Sita in Brighton Humiliation by The Sea

Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)
Sita in Brighton: humiliation by the sea
A PSIRU report
By Steve Davies
Senior Research Fellow, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
August 2001
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)

School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Greenwich
30 Park Row London SE10 9LS U.K.
Email: psiru@psiru.org Tel: +44-(0)208-331-9933 Fax: +44 (0)208-331-7781 www.psiru.org
Director: David Hall Researchers: Kate Bayliss, Steve Davies, Emanuele Lobina, Sam Weinstein
The PSIRU was set up in 1998 to carry out empirical research into privatisation, public services,
and globalisation. It is part of the School of Computing and Mathematics in the University of
Greenwich, London. PSIRU’s research is centred around the maintenance of an extensive and
regularly updated database of information on the economic, political, financial, social and
technical experience with privatisation and restructuring of public services worldwide.
This core database is financed by Public Services International (PSI), the worldwide confederation
of public service trade unions. www.world-psi.org
© Unless otherwise stated, this report is the copyright of the PSIRU and the organisations which
commissioned and/or financed it
Sita: a PSIRU company profile 29/06/23
Sita in Brighton
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2
2. Part 1: the background ............................................................................................................................ 2
2.1 Waste management in the UK.............................................................................................................................. 2
 Companies active in the UK waste management market_______________________________________ 3
2.2 Global waste management ................................................................................................................................... 3
 Waste Multinationals: numbers of employees _______________________________________________ 3
 Waste management multinationals: annual revenue __________________________________________ 4
2.3 Suez: Sita’s parent ................................................................................................................................................ 4
 Suez: lead companies in different sectors __________________________________________________ 4
3. Part 2: Sita in Brighton ........................................................................................................................... 5
3.1 The tender............................................................................................................................................................. 5
3.2 Timetable.............................................................................................................................................................. 5
3.3 The problems........................................................................................................................................................ 6
3.4 700 complaints a day............................................................................................................................................ 7
3.5 Industrial action .................................................................................................................................................... 7
3.6 Au revoir Sita ....................................................................................................................................................... 8
3.7 Lessons of Brighton ............................................................................................................................................. 8
 Industrial relations ____________________________________________________________________ 8
 A loss leader? ________________________________________________________________________ 9
3.8 Geographical synergies? ...................................................................................................................................... 9
3.9 Problems with Sita elsewhere in the UK............................................................................................................ 10
 Dudley ____________________________________________________________________________ 10
 Slough ____________________________________________________________________________ 10
 Oldham____________________________________________________________________________ 11
 South Gloucestershire ________________________________________________________________ 11
4. Annex: Cartels, ‘local monopolies’ and a Waste Regulator............................................................... 11
1. Introduction
Sita is the waste management division of French multi-utility, multinational Suez. It claims to be the No.1
waste management company in both the UK and Europe.
Both in its own right and as part of Suez, Sita is an enormous company with a presence in 30 countries, has
contracts that serve more than 74 million people, operates 277 landfills, 14 000 vehicles, 71 incinerators,
220 sorting centres and 85 composting sites. It has 70,000 employees and 330,000 industrial and commercial
clients.
So when it took on the contract for the newly merged council of Brighton and Hove on the south coast of
England, it cannot have imagined that 18 months later it would be humiliatingly thrown off the contract.
2. Part 1: the background
2.1
Waste management in the UK
_____________________________________________________________________________
PSIRU www.psiru.org Page - 2 -
Like much of the rest of the world, the waste management industry in the UK has seen huge changes in
recent years with a high degree of consolidation.
In just the last twelve months there has been substantial change. Biffa acquired UK Waste from Waste
Management Inc, Sita joined up with United Waste Services (having already shared the ultimate parent
company of Suez), Cleanaway purchased Serviceteam and Hanson Waste Management was bought by
Waste Recycling Group.
Sita claims to be the UK’s leading waste management company. It says that the market continues to be in
the process of consolidation and that 39% is held by the country’s five leading operators, with 64% of
domestic waste collection carried out by local councils.1
 Companies active in the UK waste management market
Company Parent
Biffa Waste Services Ltd Severn Trent (100%)

Cleanaway Ltd Merger of Australian
company Brambles and UK
firm GKN’s industrial
services division
Cleansing Service Group Ltd
Cory Environmental Exel (100%)
Municipal Services Ltd
Ecovert Saur (100%)
Hales Waste Control Ltd
Onyx Total Waste Vivendi (100%)
Management
Shanks
Sita Suez (100%)
Viridor Waste Management Pennon (100%
Ltd
Waste Recycling Group Kelda (46%)
2.2 Global waste management
A number of the companies in dominant positions in the UK are also important players on a world scale.
The following tables illustrates the relative size of selected companies with reference to their number of
employees and revenue.
 Waste Multinationals: numbers of employees
_____________________________________________________________________________
Waste m anagem ent m ultinationals: num bers of w orkers
80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000 No of
w orkers
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Suez Vivendi RWE Umw elt Rethmann Cleanaw ay Biffa Shanks
Lyonnaise (Onyx)
 Waste management multinationals: annual revenue
Company 2000 Revenue (€million)
Vivendi 5,260
Suez 5,028.1
RWE 2,300 (first six months figures)
Rethmann 920 (1999 figure)
Source: Annual reports, company press releases
2.3 Suez: Sita’s parent
Sita is owned by, and is effectively the waste management division of, the large French multinational Suez.
It was formerly called Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux.
The company is a multi-utility and operates in water, energy, waste management, communications, prisons,
and also has a large construction division (GTM). It has some remaining businesses in financial services, but
these are being sold.
Its core areas are water, energy, waste and communications. It has reorganised its operations so that its lead
subsidiaries are as follows:
 Suez: lead companies in different sectors
_____________________________________________________________________________
Sector Subsidiary
Water Ondeo
Energy Tractebel
Waste Sita
Communications M6
TPS
3. Part 2: Sita in Brighton
3.1 The tender
Sita was awarded the contract for the newly merged council of Brighton and Hove in November 1999. It was
not the cheapest bid.2
The contract was worth £6.7 million a year for a period of five years.
It replaced 4 contracts in the two towns and added an extra £1.8 million a year to the bill.
Among those providing the services under the previous arrangements were Focsa (owned by Spanish
construction group FCC, in turn part-owned by French multi-utility Vivendi) and Ecovert (owned by Saur,
and in turn by French construction giant, Bouygues).
3.2 Timetable
Date Event
November 1999 Sita awarded £6.7 million a year, five year

contract for newly merged Brighton and
Hove Council.
Summer 2000 Problems with service emerge as industrial

dispute over harmonisation of pay and
conditions occurs. Sita called before
council’s scrutiny board.
September Sita admits that it is running at a loss.3
November 2000 Industrial action takes place including a sit-in

at the Hollingdean depot. Workers claim the
company was holding back a £250 bonus
payment until they agreed further changes in
working patterns.4
16 November 2000 Sita called before the council’s scrutiny board
again. Council still not satisfied and wants
Sita to report improvements to the next
meeting.
_____________________________________________________________________________
December GMB calls off talks with Sita’s UK boss Ian

Goodfellow after he accused workers of
missing streets so that they could go home
early.
June New collection routes imposed by company.

Union argues that they are unworkable.
7 June 2001 Sita applies to council for permission to use

global positioning satellites to track its
vehicles on their rounds.5
11 June 2001 Sita suspends workers who failed to complete

their rounds. Workers then occupied their
depot and Sita responded by sacking 131.
The council gives Sita 48 hours to explain

how it will deliver the contract or lose it.6
14 June 2001 As the industrial action continues the council

demands a compensation package from Sita
to release them from the contract.
The sacked workers offer to collect the

town’s rubbish for free until the dispute is
resolved.7
15 June 2001 Humiliation for Sita as all sacked workers

reinstated and company agrees to pay the
council £3 million in compensation to be
released from the contract.8
15 June 2001 The GMB announces that it is working with

local recycling co-op, Magpie to put together
a bid for the work.9
3.3 The problems
In November 1999, when Sita took over the waste management for the newly merged council of Brighton
and Hove, they set about attempting to pull together the routes and different terms and conditions of the
workforces they inherited.
Within seven months of the start of the contract, local newspaper, the Brighton and Hove Argus was
reporting that Sita was “not living up to expectations” and “there have been plenty of problems with
collections. These have been particularly bad after the Christmas and Spring Bank Holidays with thousands
of bins not being emptied”.10
In June, the workforce passed a vote of no confidence in their management in a dispute over the
harmonisation of pay and conditions.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Sita’s approach to industrial relations didn’t help matters. They seemed unwilling to communicate with the
workforce, preferring to impose change. Not surprisingly, this provoked a number of disputes.
Later in the summer, Sita changed the arrangements for collection and the complaints began to multiply.
By July 2000, the council’s dissatisfaction with the privatised service was already cross-party. Liberal
Democrat councillor Paul Elgood said: “I have been inundated with complaints from members of the public
about the state of the streets”. Conservative councillor, John Sheldon said: “The last six months have been a
disaster as far as the towns are concerned.”11
At that stage the latest dispute relating to harmonising workers’ conditions was supposed to have been
resolved. But the workers’ dissatisfaction and the service failures continued through the summer.
3.4 700 complaints a day
The changes in refuse collection and street cleaning arrangements did not improve the service as rubbish was
left uncollected and streets unswept. Sita split the 126,000 properties in Brighton and Hove into three
different areas. At one point the company received up to 700 complaints a day. In some parts of the area,
rubbish was left rotting for weeks.12
The council’s chief executive summoned Sita managers to the September meeting of the scrutiny board to
explain why refuse remained uncollected and streets were littered. Brighton Chief Executive Glynn Jones
said: “The time for excuses is over”.13
The Leader of the council issued a statement backing a tougher line with Sita. “We have demanded that Sita
management pull out all the stops to sort this shambles… Sita is an international company and it is putting
its reputation at risk on a national and European level by delivering a poor quality service to Brighton and
Hove residents.”14
Councillor John Balance (executive councillor, environment) made a public apology “to those residents of
Brighton and Hove who have suffered by not having their waste collected at the agreed time since the
beginning of August.”15
In September as problems continued, one resident dumped all her uncollected rubbish on the steps of the
council’s offices. Sita reportedly admitted it had failed residents and that the situation was a “nightmare”.16
By now Sita was reportedly losing £350,000 a month.17
3.5 Industrial action
In November unofficial industrial action and an overtime ban took place as the unresolved problems blew up
again. Workers staged a sit-in at the Hollingdean depot, claiming the company was holding back a £250
bonus payment until they agreed further changes in working patterns.18
Mark Turner of the workers’ union, the GMB, told local reporters that the problems of harmonisation had
been made much worse by the inconsistency of management (a dozen contract managers in a year) and the
company’s failure to consult. He said: “There was no consultation with the union before the contract started.
Because of this they bought the wrong vehicles, which disrupted rounds. They should have bought narrow-
body vehicles to negotiate the streets of Brighton. If we are to improve the service there needs to be much
more open dialogue.”19
But things continued to deteriorate and in December 2000, the GMB called off talks with Sita’s UK boss Ian
Goodfellow after he accused workers of missing streets so that they could go home early.
_____________________________________________________________________________
For a year or so the people of Brighton and Hove appeared stuck in a cycle in which Sita repeatedly declared
that problems over rotas and service quality were now over, only to see them re-emerge within days.
Eventually in the summer of 2001, the company claimed it was going back to the original rotas. But the
problems were still not over.
As the local newspaper’s editorial put it: “its industrial relations appear to have been hopeless and it has
failed to build up trust with many of the people it employs”.20
3.6 Au revoir Sita
The company appeared determined to impose new schedules and on 6 June 2001, in a move guaranteed to be
seen as a provocation, the company asked the council for permission to fit global positioning satellite
tracking devices to the trucks.21 It was seen as the latest attempt by the company to blame the workforce for
the service failings.
On 11 June Sita suspended workers who failed to complete the new rounds. They claimed the rounds were
unrealistic. Workers then occupied their depot and Sita responded by sacking 131.
The council gave Sita forty eight hours to show how it would meet the terms of the contract or lose it.22
As the industrial action continued the council demanded a compensation package from Sita to release them
from the contract. The sacked workers offered to collect the town’s rubbish for free until the dispute was
resolved.23
Then in a humiliating climbdown, all the sacked workers were reinstated and Sita agreed to pay the council
£3 million in compensation to be released from the contract. Sita will continue with the contract for three
months while the council organises a replacement.24
The GMB has announced that it is working with local recycling co-op, Magpie to put together a bid for the
work.25
3.7 Lessons of Brighton
A number of clear lessons have emerged from the events at Brighton.
 Industrial relations
Sita had a disastrous industrial relations record throughout the period they held the contract. When they took
the contract, they inherited a situation which required sensitivity and imagination in order to harmonise the
pay and conditions of different groups of workers.
Instead they appeared to wilfully antagonise the workforce imposing unrealistic work schedules and
avoiding proper consultation. The company repeatedly told the council that they had excellent relations with
the union and the workforce.
In fact the company engaged in withdrawal of bonuses, suspensions, lock-outs, and eventually mass
sackings. In response the workforce passed a motion of no-confidence in the management after only seven
months, and took part in a series of different forms of industrial action – including strikes, overtime bans and
sit-ins.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Needless to say, this is not exactly a record of industrial harmony.
 A loss leader?
The heavy handed approach to industrial relations resulted (at least in part) from the tightness of the finances
for the contract.
Just before Sita lost the contract, the Brighton and Hove Argus commented: “The root of the problem is that
Sita took on the contract at too low a price. Each time it tried to break even, it fixed routines for the staff
which they considered impossible. It is said to be losing £4 million a year on the Brighton and Hove
contract, a figure which even a refuse giant such as Sita must find unsupportable.”26
The paper speculated that Sita might now wish to see the contract terminated and added that “its
disappearance from the city would be welcome”.27
Only Sita will know whether they deliberately tendered a loss leader in Brighton and Hove.
The company admitted they were losing money early in the Brighton contract and right at the end of their
period at Brighton, Sita were in negotiation with the council to increase payment, especially for new labour-
intensive recycling services.28
However it is undeniable that in the area surrounding Brighton and Hove, Sita looked on the brink of gaining
a cluster of contracts.
3.8 Geographical synergies?
Sita already has another contract nearby and is bidding for a third.
In May 2001 Sita gained a two-year waste contract with East Sussex County Council worth £1.7 million a
year.
It is one of the bidders in the tender process for the energy from waste processing contract drawn up by East
Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.
The Private Finance Initiative deal is estimated to be worth £1 billion over 20 years and may be even more
lucrative if the contract is extended to 30 or 40 years as has apparently been suggested in tender
documents.29
The proposal involves the building of two incinerators to burn waste. This has already provoked an
opposition campaign among local residents.
Six companies were originally invited to bid:
➢ Biffa Waste Services (owned by UK water company, Severn Trent Water)

➢ Onyx Aurora (owned by French multi-utility Vivendi)
➢ Sita (owned by French multi-utility Suez)
➢ United Waste Services (at the time owned by Belgian company Tractebel, in turn owned by Suez)
➢ Viridor Waste Management (owned by Pennon, formerly South West Water)
➢ Waste Recycling Group (part owned by Kelda, formerly Yorkshire Water)
The list has since been reduced to four. United Waste Services withdrew after the ultimate owner of both
itself and Sita reorganised its waste operations last November, so that Sita absorbed UWS in the UK.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Biffa pulled out of the process in February this year. According to local press reports this was because the
company had protested that the proposals would prevent the successful tenderer from exploring alternatives
to incineration.30
Biffa has previously said that over-reliance on incineration could jeopardise recycling, waste minimisation
and the use of innovative green technologies.
Joelle van Tinteren of the local anti-incinerator group, Dove, said: “The tragedy here is that out of a poor
waste strategy, Biffa was our only hope of a slightly more green approach.”31
The councils refused to say why Biffa had pulled out and the company said that it was bound by a
confidentiality agreement with the councils. The contract is due to be awarded in December 2001.
Of course, Sita has some logical reasons for being pro-incineration if it already has a cluster of waste
management contracts in the area. It allows it to move some of the different elements towards a vertically
integrated waste management model in the area. Obviously losing the Brighton contract cuts across this.
3.9 Problems with Sita elsewhere in the UK
The recent events in Brighton, are not the first time that there have been problems with Sita’s ‘low cost’
services in the UK.
 Dudley
Dudley Council in the Midlands recently received a “good” and “likely to improve” rating under the
government’s Best Value regime. The council’s director of operational services, Mike Kelly believes that
there has been a big improvement in standards since the council got rid of Sita and brought the service back
in-house.
“We had problems with reliability and old vehicles. Service levels were not high” says Kelly. A 1998 survey
of residents found that only 77% were happy with the service. This year the satisfaction level is 94%. Kelly
says that under Sita there was “a very low cost, low quality service”.
In April this year the in-house team won the bid against three contractors. The council paid half a million
pounds more for the service making a annual total of £2.5 million. It introduced a four day week so that
there would never be problems with bank holidays (one of the major issues for Sita’s contract in Brighton),
cut working hours from 39 to 37 and introduced an extra crew.
The result has been that Dudley’s missed collection rate went down from 114 per 100,000 homes to just 22.
This year’s target is to reduce it to 15.32
 Slough
In December 2000, Bob Middleton, regional industrial organiser for the TGWU told reporters that there had
been thousands of complaints from residents about the poor quality of Sita’s service.
“Sita has been responsible for refuse collection in Slough for 14 months now and we have had problems
from the beginning. Two months ago we had 2,000 complaints from residents saying that they hadn’t had
their bins emptied. At one point it looked like we would have to take industrial action.”33
_____________________________________________________________________________
 Oldham
The northern town is another where Sita has been replaced by an in-house team after complaints from
residents.
Mike Williamson of the GMB said: “Sita was a big headache to us. They managed refuse collection here for
five years until this Easter and we were glad to see the back of them. The people of Oldham were constantly
complaining about not having their rubbish collected. They also had a demoralising effect on the workforce.
They cut workers’ holiday entitlements by five days, they cut sick pay and employed other workers at a
lower rate of pay on a different contract.”34
 South Gloucestershire
In July 2000 Sita were replaced as the waste contractor for the council. There had been a series of industrial
disputes and some complaints about Sita’s failure to collect ‘side waste’, ie waste left by the side of wheelie
bins.35
The new 25 year PFI contract was awarded to United Waste Services.36 Even at that stage both Sita and
UWS were ultimately owned by Suez. But a few months after South Gloucestershire awarded the contract to
UWS, it was formally acquired by Sita.
4. Annex: Cartels, ‘local monopolies’ and a Waste Regulator
Waste management has a history of the operation of cartels both in the UK and abroad. Sometimes this
crosses over the grey area and directly into criminal activity as illustrated by the involvement of organised
crime in waste management in parts of the USA.
There has also been a history of cost-cutting in order to obtain contracts and loss leaders.
In May 1995 Generale des Eaux (now Vivendi) subsidiaries were fined a total of FF700,000 (nearly £1
million) by the Conseil de Concurrence – the French Competition Council. The fines were imposed for
collusion by 5 companies bidding for three refuse collection contracts in Var in the south of France (Hyeres,
Nans-les-Pins and Villefrance-sur-Mer). Three of the companies were 100% owned by Generale des Eaux,
one was 50% owned by Generale des Eaux, the other was 34% owned by Generale des Eaux. The companies
made bids without revealing their connections, and after sharing information.37
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, WMX (Waste Management Inc’s predecessor) was repeatedly dragged
through the courts to face charges of price fixing. In 1971 in Illinois, WMX was sued for price fixing and
had to pay a $50,000 fine. In 1974 a WMX subsidiary was found guilty of price fixing in Wisconsin. In 1980
WMX was indicted in Atlanta for engaging in price fixing with BFI (now owned by Allied Waste). In 1984
the company was found guilty and a local manager was sent to prison. An FBI memorandum showed that
investigators believed that the “activities in Atlanta were probably directed by corporate officials from the
company headquarters”.
In 1987 WMX pleaded guilty to price fixing charges in Toledo and paid a $1 million fine. In 1988 WMX
pleaded no contest to price fixing in Florida. In 1989 WMX pleaded no contest to charges of price fixing in
Los Angeles paying $1 million. In December 1989, the company pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5
million to settle price fixing charges in California.
One of the most important cases to date was a civil class action suit filed in 1987 in Philadelphia, alleging
that WMX and their largest ‘competitor’, BFI had engaged in a nationwide price fixing conspiracy for 10
_____________________________________________________________________________
years. In 1990, WMX and BFI settled, agreeing to pay the plaintiffs - a group of their customers - a total of
$50 million (WMX paid $19.5 million, BFI paid $30.5 million) and split$13 million in attorneys’ fees. Both
companies denied any wrongdoing but the evidence in the case indicated that WMX and BFI officials had
not only condoned price fixing, but also directed and participated in it.38
In the mid 1990s in the UK, the Office of Fair Trading investigated loss-leading bids in refuse collection,
“where private sector companies may be tendering for local authority contracts on a predatory basis
accepting short term losses so as to eliminate competitors with the expectation of subsequently making
monopoly profits” and collusion to avoid competition through “an agreement between certain private sector
companies that for each contract only one of them will make a realistic bid, with the result that contracts
would eventually be shared out among them.”39
Whenever cost-cutting frenzies took place it was usually the workforce and the customers who paid the price
in fewer jobs, worse conditions and a poorer service.
While Sita was losing the Brighton contract, a few miles along the coast the Institute of Wastes Management
was meeting for its annual conference.
New president Dr Cathy O’Brien, caused quite a stir with a call for a waste management industry regulator.
She claimed the industry was fragmented and short-term in its approach to waste planning,
She also said that some companies were operating “local monopolies” and unfairly forcing up prices charged
to local authorities for waste disposal.
Dr O’Brien argued that the creation of a waste industry financial regulator could also help in parts of the
country where prices were too low and consequently discouraged investment in recovery routes such as
recycling.
This has been taken by some observers as an oblique reference to the practice of loss leaders.
Dr O’Brien pointed out that: “Setting a minimum and maximum gate price for each type of method of waste
management solution could help the financial planning for future facilities…”
The call for a financial regulator for the industry is unlikely to be a popular one with the waste management
companies. One ‘senior waste industry figure’ told the letsrecycle.com web site that this was "tantamount to
market interference and could lead to serious concerns about long-term investment."40
Notes
1
Suez press release, 18 June 2001
2
Brighton and Hove Argus, 11 June 2001
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
_____________________________________________________________________________
11
Brighton and Hove Argus, 3 July 2000
12
13
Brighton and Hove Argus, 19 August 2000
14
Brighton and Hove Council press release 22 August 2000
15
Brighton and Hove Argus, 22 August 2000
16
Brighton and Hove Argus, 9 September 2000
17
Independent, 16 June 2001
18
19
Brighton and Hove Argus, 15 December 2000
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
ibid
28
Brighton and Hove Argus 13 June, 2001
29
Brighton and Hove Argus, 11 July 2000
30
Brighton and Hove Argus, 24 February 2001
31
ibid
32
Guardian, 6 June 2001
33
Brighton and Hove Argus, 15 December 2000
34
ibid
35
Western Daily Press, 15 September 2000
36
South Gloucestershire Council press release, 1 August 2000
37
Le Monde, 11 May 1995.
38
Citizens’ Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, USA, 1995.
39
The Privatisation Network, PSPRU, 1996.
40
www.letsrecycle.com news item 12 June 2001
_____________________________________________________________________________

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Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)

Sita in Brighton: humiliation by the sea

Senior Research Fellow, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University

Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)

2. Part 1: the background

 Companies active in the UK waste management market

Biffa Waste Services Ltd Severn Trent (100%)

2.2 Global waste management

 Waste Multinationals: numbers of employees

Waste m anagem ent m ultinationals: num bers of w orkers

 Waste management multinationals: annual revenue

Company 2000 Revenue (€million)

RWE 2,300 (first six months figures)

Rethmann 920 (1999 figure)

Source: Annual reports, company press releases

2.3 Suez: Sita’s parent

 Suez: lead companies in different sectors

3. Part 2: Sita in Brighton

3.1 The tender

November 1999 Sita awarded £6.7 million a year, five year

Summer 2000 Problems with service emerge as industrial

September Sita admits that it is running at a loss.3

November 2000 Industrial action takes place including a sit-in

December GMB calls off talks with Sita’s UK boss Ian

June New collection routes imposed by company.

7 June 2001 Sita applies to council for permission to use

11 June 2001 Sita suspends workers who failed to complete

The council gives Sita 48 hours to explain

14 June 2001 As the industrial action continues the council

The sacked workers offer to collect the

15 June 2001 Humiliation for Sita as all sacked workers

15 June 2001 The GMB announces that it is working with

3.3 The problems

3.4 700 complaints a day

3.5 Industrial action

3.6 Au revoir Sita

3.7 Lessons of Brighton

A number of clear lessons have emerged from the events at Brighton.

Needless to say, this is not exactly a record of industrial harmony.

3.8 Geographical synergies?

Six companies were originally invited to bid:

➢ Biffa Waste Services (owned by UK water company, Severn Trent Water)

3.9 Problems with Sita elsewhere in the UK

4. Annex: Cartels, ‘local monopolies’ and a Waste Regulator

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