Strovolos garbage collectors get back to work

Strovolos garbage collectors have agreed to get back to work in exchange of the municipality dropping plans to buy partial services from the private sector at least until November.

The deal was struck Monday morning during a meeting between the mayor, unions, and various municipality teams.

The meeting came days following a strike on Thursday and Friday, affecting the 25-square-kilometre municipality with over 70,000 residents, which resulted to garbage not being collected for several days.

In Monday’s meeting, the municipal garbage collectors agreed to end the strike and get back to work.

In exchange, the municipality will not go ahead with buying partial services at least until the end of October.

Other terms of the agreement included the start of a new dialogue between the municipality and unions, and a commitment on the part of garbage collectors to make up for the lost days "by collecting the accumulated trash on a schedule monitored by the main office in the next few days.”

Last week, the unions said they were “reacting strongly to buying services and a number of garbage trucks from the private sector at the insistence of the Mayor and the majority on the city council.”

Over the weekend, Strovolos Mayor Andreas Papacharalambous, who was pushing for the purchase of garbage trucks and services from crews in the private sector, promised local residents he was going to find a solution to the problem.

This came after some angry residents expressed their feelings over the strike by leaving garbage in the yard of the Strovolos Municipality building, according to state radio.

Municipality employees from other divisions had sided with the garbage collectors, fearing that private contracts could start penetrating municipal organisational structure.

The mayor argues too much money is being lost under the current arrangement and vowed to find solutions in the near future.