Only 7% Of Council Staff Took Industrial Action

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Council leader pays tribute to the council employees

The latest staff returns from all council departments show that overall only 7.1 per cent of employees have chosen to go on strike today.

Only 30 per cent of trade union members who work for the council have answered the call for strike action. The vast majority of trade union members are working as normal.

Apart from schools, all council services are operating as normal. Almost all frontline services to the public are not affected in any way.

Refuse collections are operating as normal as is the borough's street cleaning service, the register office and the housing benefits service. All of Wandsworth's leisure centres are operating normally as are most of the borough's libraries, although the branches at Balham and Southfields will be closing slightly earlier today.

The latest figures show that 41 of the borough's 80 schools are either fully open or partially open. The remaining 39 have closed for the day.

Council leader Ravi Govindia paid tribute to all council employees who are working normally today. He said:
"On behalf of the public I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to all those hard working and dedicated members of staff who are today providing the public with the same level of high quality service they have come to expect in Wandsworth."

The council's cabinet member for education and children's services, Cllr Kathy Tracey added:
"It is regrettable that some schools have had to close as a result of today's industrial action.  I hope that today's strike is the one and only day of industrial action and that the trade unions now return to the negotiating table in order to reach a settlement. They should certainly not be causing any further disruption to children's education or unnecessary inconvenience to hard working parents."

November 29, 2011