Householders have been warned that the knock-on impact of strike action by council workers, education staff and Housing Executive employees in Northern Ireland will continue to be felt over the coming days.
Frontline workers struggling to cope with spiralling costs downed tools last week amid growing anger at pay levels.
Staff including classroom assistants, school bus drivers and council workers were among those who took to the picket lines after rejecting a 1.75% pay offer.
Read more: NI frontline staff down tools over 1.75% pay offer
Union Unite said the pay offer “would mean another real terms pay cut and comes after 11 years of pay freezes”.
School transport, meals and council services such as bin collections were all disrupted by the action over pay.
The industrial action began on Monday, March 21 and ran until Sunday.
Several recycling services and centres were unable to operate during the strike action, as well as street cleaning. Some leisure centres, parks, play areas were also affected.
Bin collections in Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and Derry and Strabane District Council were the most impacted.
Ards and North Down Council has advised residents that following on from last week's industrial action, no extra waste will be collected when kerbside collections resume from Monday of this week.
Instead collections this week will be as per the existing collection calendar.
Household Recycling Centres are open but are expected to be busy. Members of the public are advised to please have their waste sorted before they travel to the HRC and be prepared to wait. If a site is busy, be prepared to come again at a later time.
Householders are also being urged to please continue to minimise the amount of household waste such as recycling and food produced wherever possible.
- You can find tips for reducing food waste here: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
- Flatten your recycling, such as cardboard boxes, cartons and plastic bottles, to save space in your recycling container.
- Set excess waste to the side/store safely at home until your next scheduled collection date.
- Avoid doing activities that unnecessarily generate excess waste during this short-term period , e.g. household ‘clear outs’ or excessive garden maintenance that can be left to a later date.
- Don’t burn waste at home as this creates air pollution. Fly-tipping is illegal and impacts public health and our environment. It is a criminal offence to dump waste illegally.
In a series of tweets on Monday morning, Derry City and Strabane District Council said: "Please note that Black Bin services are running as normal this week after last week’s strike action with Blue Bin services recommencing the following week 4th April. Brown Bins will also be collected this week if this is your regular week for collection.
"Recycling Centres have reopened this week. We appreciate that some people may wish to dispose of excess waste but be mindful that this may result in increased waiting times! We would ask that people plan to visit centres at quieter times if possible and to please be patient."
A spokesperson for Belfast City Council said: "Reminder that bin/box collections due this week are taking place as scheduled. Please leave bins out by 7am on your collection day. Our recycling centres are also open as normal this week. If your bin wasn’t emptied this week due to strike action, thanks for your patience. These will be done on next scheduled date.
"Please note that full street cleansing services are now back in operation. However it may be a few days before all litter bins etc are serviced as crews catch up on schedules. We appreciate your patience as we get back up to speed."
On Monday, Unite confirmed that a further day of strike action is now planned by workers at the Education Authority for this coming Friday, April 1.
The strike announcement comes ahead of a meeting involving workforce reps from across all NJC-pay sectors this week, which is likely to determine the union’s wider strategy to win improvements to pay.
Unite's Lead Regional Officer for Education, Kieran Ellison, said: “Given most of these workers are school bus drivers, it is likely that this strike action will result in considerable disruption to school transport.
“Full responsibility for this lies with the Education Authority who have failed to make any response even after the first week of strike action. We are calling on them to come forward with a realistic pay offer to address our members’ pay expectations.”
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