Housing officers halt imminent strikes in hope of ‘good faith’ talks

Hackney Town Hall

Strike action planned this week by Hackney housing officers has been paused – with organisers hopeful of reaching a negotiated settlement “in good faith”.

Council staff had voted for five days of walkouts across two weeks over plans for a “Deliveroo-style” restructure that technically put 89 out of 100 jobs at risk of redundancy.

But they will now hold off on strikes planned for today and tomorrow as a way of signalling their “clear willingness” for talks.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported last week that the council’s tenancy services team, represented by Unison, did not want to cause disruption but were concerned by what they saw as a lack of urgency from their employer.

This pivoted on the union’s desire to bring negotiations forward from 20 August – when strike action would already be underway – to 18 August.

Though the meeting date did not change, a Unison spokesperson yesterday said its members hoped that pausing this week’s action would encourage “good faith” and “constructive” discussions with their employers.

However, three further strike days next week (26, 27 and 28 August) are still on the table.

“We have kept these as a precaution in case the council are not open to negotiations. We are also discussing future dates beyond that,” the spokesperson added.

Hackney Council said last week that the strikes would not affect frontline repairs and maintenance services.

Tenancy officers handle casework, housing correspondence, anti-social behaviour (ASB) and other duties.

Risk of layoffs and ‘Deliveroo-style’ services

The industrial dispute was triggered by plans to shake-up the department and force the majority of employees to reapply for new roles.

Officers are also worried by the council’s move to create an on-demand service where staff will be assigned cases based on their availability rather than having a dedicated patch.

Unison said the council had rushed to the restructure in the wake of a damning watchdog report which criticised Hackney’s performance over housing.

In May, social housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway said the Town Hall had missed multiple opportunities to improve on repairs, maintenance and complaint-handling because of its “positivity”.

He later described the council as an outlier when it came to the scale of its failures as a social landlord.

Rickardo Hyatt, Hackney’s group director for climate, homes and economy, said the council fully accepted the watchdog’s feedback and was using it to improve the service.

He added that the Town Hall was also creating an independent panel of experts and tenants to help guide this effort.