Overview
- Council workers represented by the Australian Services Union staged a 24-hour stoppage Tuesday that halted bin collection in Hume, Darebin and Merri-bek and paused parking enforcement in Yarra, Maribyrnong and Melbourne.
- Roughly 70 workers walked off the job, leaving about 17,000 bins unemptied in Hume and forcing many residents to wait until the next scheduled pickup.
- The union seeks a 10% pay rise in the first year followed by 4% annually, saying workers have lost 7–12% in real wages since 2021 due to rising costs.
- Councils point to a 2.75% state rates cap as a hard limit on revenue for wages, and they say formal bargaining is underway with another meeting set for Tuesday.
- Hume advised residents not to lodge missed-collection reports and to re-present bins next week, while the union warned parks, libraries and more councils could face disruptions if talks stall.