Birmingham bin strikes to continue through Christmas and into spring as workers vote to extend walkout
Long-running strikes by Birmingham bin workers in a bitter dispute over pay could continue through Christmas and into spring as workers vote to extend their walkout.
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Unite said its members have overwhelmingly voted to extend their industrial action mandate to March 2026.
The workers have been on strike since March of this past year, leading to rubbish piling up in streets across the city.
Unite claimed the “ball is in the government’s court,” adding that Government-appointed commissioners in Birmingham scuppered a deal that would have ended the dispute.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "Throughout this dispute the Government has denied any involvement. It is now clear that commissioners reporting to (Deputy Prime Minister) Angela Rayner blocked a ball-park deal thrashed out at Acas.
"The recent amendment by the Government to the Employment Rights Bill, that allows councils in debt to fire and rehire their workers, shows what is really going on here.
"Council workers are being lined up to pay the price for years of austerity."
More than 100 days into all-out action in the long-running row over pay cuts, an LBC poll held in June found that Birmingham locals still backed the striking bin workers over the council.
The poll, which surveyed over 100 Brummies, found that 45.7% place the blame squarely on Birmingham City Council for the prolonged industrial action.
Just 4.8% of respondents blamed the striking bin workers and their union, Unite, while 44.8% pointed fingers at both sides and 4.7% said they didn't know.
A nationwide YouGov poll held around the same time, asking the same question, found nearly three times as many people across the UK blamed the bin workers exclusively.
Nationally, more people assigned equal blame to both the council and the union, with fewer seeing the council as solely responsible.
At the time, striking bin worker Steeven Biset told LBC the figures echoed what many of the striking staff have felt for weeks.
He said: “We’re not the villains here. People in this city know that we’ve been pushed into this fight, and they’ve seen what’s really going on.”
The strike, which has now entered its sixth month, has seen bins go uncollected across large parts of the city at times and huge mounds of waste and rubbish build up in some areas.
Striking workers previously said they would “strike for the rest of the year or as long as it takes” to get a fair deal.
The union began its strike on March 11 over a pay dispute, claiming that around 150 workers would be left £8,000 worse off under council proposals to scrap the role of Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO).
The council claims that only 17 members of staff would lose a maximum of £6,000 in pay.
The conciliation service Acas has been involved in talks since the start of the month to break the deadlock in the negotiations, but the dispute has still not been resolved..
Unite said the talks set out a clear timeline for a discussed offer to be tabled by the council, but it claimed no offer has been made.
Commissioners were brought in by the previous Conservative government after the council declared itself effectively bankrupt in September 2023.
Unite said: "What has become increasingly clear is that the offer is now being blocked by the Government commissioners and the leader of the council, none of whom have ever been in the negotiating room.”
An MHCLG spokesperson said: "We are committed to supporting Birmingham’s long-term transformation, and a sustainable resolution of the equal pay issues which have been left unresolved for far too long.
“Our position remains clear: Unite should suspend the strike, and work with the council on a sustainable way forward.”
The union added that the 'fair and reasonable offer' that Keir Starmer and other Labour members have urged Unite to accept 'did not exist', after the party blamed bin workers in the dispute.