Some 550 sanitation workers went on strike in Copenhagen, Denmark, March 20 after officials at the municipal trash-collection agency refused to back down on imposing a more onerous work schedule. The strikers set up a mass picket, blocking the entrance to Amager Bakke, the municipal recycling and power plant run by Amager Resource Center.
The members of the 3F union federation work for private contractors, but that work is now being taken over directly by the center, run by local governments. The garbage collectors currently work five hours a day. The bosses want to impose a seven-hour day. Workers say this would mean coming home late to their families every evening and that there is no need to change a schedule that has been working fine.
“As long as they are on strike, we will not negotiate,” Amager Resource Center spokesperson Helena Hasselsteen Nielsen told the press.
Strikers continued to block the plant after they were ordered back to work March 21 following a meeting between officials of 3F and the center’s bosses. “The strike continues,” striker Michael Johansen told the press. “We hope with this blockade that we have created some awareness.”