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| Volume 55 Number 7, March 23, 2025 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Birmingham striking bin workers - Photo:
Unite
Rubbish has built up in the streets across Birmingham as refuse collectors escalate their actions, with the commissioner-led Birmingham City Council and its private agency, Job & Talent, deliberately replacing permanent workers with temporary agency staff in an attempt to break strikes.
Almost 400 workers began their indefinite strike on March 11, over the council's scrapping of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role, causing pay cuts of up to £8,000 to 150 workers. Not only is there no path for pay progression, but the council is also preparing further pay downgrades to other non-management jobs, according to Unite. This is on top of a situation where most Birmingham refuse workers are already on very low pay for what is a tough job, working out in all weather conditions. According to Unite, the majority of these workers are paid between £24,027 and £25,992 - barely above the annual minimum wage.
Police break picket line at Atlas Road depot - Photo Nick
Wilkinson, Birmingham Live
Workers have previously agreed to pay cuts - including a £1,000 cut in shift pay - following the council's so-called "bankruptcy". Indeed, it is the latest phase of a long-running struggle. A seven-week dispute in 2017 ended with an agreement from the council that certain posts would not be made redundant, while workers were forced into accepting rota changes. The dispute broke out again in 2019, over "conciliatory payments", paid to none of those on strike two years earlier, ending the following month with a financial settlement.
In a vain attempt to break the latest strike, Birmingham City Council has been replacing additional refuse workers with agency staff. The council, through agency Job & Talent, has been using agency labour to undermine the strikes. This is an illegal practice. The council even dismissed three agency workers just for speaking to picketers, justifying the sackings as due to "lack of work". Unite has called on the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to act against this illegal practice.
Agency staff already make up 40% of the city's refuse workforce. The dispute over the council's attacks on bin workers has brought into focus the condition of these staff, say the union, who have exposed the more than £6.5 million a year extra on top of wages to the agencies. One so-called temporary worker has been at the council for 13 years.
Birmingham's waste service is in serious crisis, facing deteriorating service quality due to budget cuts, staff instability, and outdated equipment, in a situation of such severe underfunding that it amounts to outright wrecking of this essential service.
Meanwhile, the streets of Birmingham have suffered as bins pile up, creating public health risks and fuelling general public discontent. The effects of the action underscore the necessity for investment in such basic services, without which there is simply chaos. Rubbish is in some places strewn across roads almost barricading them, according to reports, while rats and cockroaches are taking over. Birmingham MP Preet Gill has warned of a "public health emergency".
The public authority in Birmingham has been systematically wrecked in recent years, significantly including the effects of severe government funding cuts, culminating in its alleged "bankruptcy" in August 2023. How the council of Britain's second city can be declared financially bankrupt is the height of capital-centric irrationality. The massive value created by the services it provides could not be clearer as the effects of this strike unfold.
Rather, this so-called bankruptcy has been the excuse to appoint commissioners representing private interests, in what amounts to a coup at the level of local government. These commissioners were handed control of the council by the previous government in October 2023, which appointed six commissioners and two political advisors to oversee the council. The commissioners, led by Max Caller, effectively exercise control over the council via extensive powers, including amending budgets and appointing or dismissing senior staff. Their role is to guide the council through a "recovery" plan, which may involve selling assets, cutting services, and increasing council tax.
"Birmingham's zombie council is being controlled by unelected commissioners who are slashing services and attacking jobs. The city's refuse workers are fighting back with Unite's full support," said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham. "The country had 14 years of disastrous austerity under the previous government - more of the same is just making things worse in Birmingham. This is the opposite of what Labour was elected to do. Ministers need to step in and tell the commissioners to leave."
The council is foisting the problems onto the backs of the workers and the people in Birmingham, problems which are not of their making, and total disaster is the result. The commissioners are leading the attacks on the refuse workers, hampering negotiations, and conducting a programme of devastating cuts across the city. Instead, people need control over their livelihoods and living conditions. The fight of the bin workers for their claims and their rights is also directed towards this end. Enough is Enough!
(Sources: Unite, Birmingham Mail, BBC)