Pay offer put to striking binmen

About 250 refuse workers are staging a week-long strike in the city

About 250 refuse workers currently on strike in Brighton and Hove are voting on a fresh offer that has been put forward by the city council.

Industrial action by members of the GMB union started on Monday and is set to continue for a week.

Council leader Mary Mears did not reveal any details of the offer, but said she believed talks were moving "in the right direction".

The GMB union said it was up to its members whether to accept the offer.

The offer was being put to the striking workers at 1100 GMT.

Contingency plans

Ms Mears said: "We have made an offer to the GMB union and they have agreed to put the offer to their members today.

"We remain hopeful that they will accept it and return to work by tomorrow."

She added: "This is about equal pay for low paid women.

"It is a government directive and we do need to deal with it. We have a large workforce within the council and a large number of women that are on lower pay that need to be equalised."

It is their livelihoods, their pay, their conditions, and their money GMB spokesman Mark Turner

She added: "We've put forward an offer that hopefully will protect the pay of our workers while balancing our duty not to bankrupt the council, or pass on unnecessary cost to the taxpayer."

If the offer was rejected by GMB members, the council would keep negotiating and would use contingency plans to deal with uncollected rubbish in the city, she said.

GMB spokesman Mark Turner said: "What we've said all along is if we've got a proposal that we think is good enough to go back [to members] then we will take it back so I think that speaks volumes in itself."

He added: "It's for them [the members] to decide at the end of the day if they will accept it or not.

"It is their livelihoods, their pay, their conditions, and their money that they have to take home to their families."

Mr Turner said the current offer could unblock the major issues, but other details would still have to be thrashed out.

He said if the offer was accepted, the strike would be suspended while talks continued.