Council’s Response Fails to Meet the Concerns of Refuse Workers

One of the questions that did not get a hearing at the last council meeting, was one raised by the relatives’ support group for the refuse workers. This group was set up to support workers from Folkstone Road who had complained of bullying and sexual harassment. 

They allege that Mayor Fiaz is overseeing a culture of bullying and harassment.

They are also supporting the refuse workers in their pay dispute.

They wanted to ask the mayor the question, shown in the leaflet below. The Chief Executive chose to rule the question out of order. Unsurprisingly, this led to some dissent. It was recorded and published on the council’s You Tube video, and then for some reason, the incident simply disappeared. The events can however, be seen here. At one point a woman interposed herself between the protester and the security staff, telling them to “back off”, at least we think that’s what she said.

One of the group complained that a group of children, brought in by Cllr Dawood, were allowed to ask questions, but the members of the protest group, who have a long standing and real dispute with the council, weren’t. For his pains, he was ‘escorted’ out of the building.

While doing this, the Chair, Cllr Vaughan suspended the meeting and councillors filed out so they didn’t have to watch the spectacle of protesters being thrown out. We learned from the Recorder that the police were called, but that no action was taken.

We have covered the background allegations of bullying and sexual abuse at Folkstone Road. This continues to be an issue for the staff, though the council appears to believe that there is nothing to the allegations and the complaints are over and done with. We will be returning to the underlying issues at a later date. 

Leaflet from the protest group, with the question.