Cleanaway taking a rubbish approach to bargaining

01 July 2026

After City of Melbourne disgracefully sold off their municipal waste business, Citywide, to Cleanaway last year, the company is wasting no time trying to strip away the favorable wages and conditions of its former Citywide employees.

After wasting weeks foolishly alleging that the ASU had no rights to represent workers at the municipal waste contractor, attempting to have us removed from the bargaining process, then eventually (inevitably) relenting, Cleanaway management reps have done nothing to smooth over tense relations.

Continuing to deny ASU members paid time to meet with their bargaining reps, and having the audacity to argue that they also do “unpaid overtime” as management reps (we’re confident our members would too if they were on their wages!), managers have now taken to complaining about how long it is taking the ASU to endorse a log of claims.

A process that would be far quicker if meetings with members were held on paid time, as we always did at Citywide!

What’s even more curious is why they are in such a hurry to see the ASUs log of claims, when so far all they have done is say flat-out “no” to almost every claim put forward by the TWU on behalf of their members.

Their rejections have ranged from the absurd, like maintaining a position to remove a consultative committee clause because “nobody uses it” after Union Delegates told them unanimously they would establish a consultative committee using the clause, to the despicable, such as flat-out rejecting a claim around protecting drivers in the event of serious injury or death in the same week that Cleanaway were fined $1.1m after their workplace failures led to two deaths and the injury of an inexperienced truck driver in South Australia in 2014.

The ASU will continue to fight for our members providing municipal services, whether working at Councils or the contractors they outsource their responsibilities to, but this serves as yet another reminder that it’s better for workers, communities, and the Councils themselves when these services are kept in-house!