Birmingham refuse workers threatening to strike again from 29th December 

 

    

In 2017, the Birmingham City Council attempted to “modernise” the refuse collection service in attempt to save £5m a year but it also threatened more than 100 jobs. In response to this, refuse workers decided to strike which ended up lasting 222 days on and off, costing the council £6m and leaving the streets of Birmingham piled up with waste. 

 

When the strike was over, Birmingham City Council agreed to settle a claim from GMB union, who argued that the Council had unlawfully failed to involve its members in its negotiations over changes to waste services. Therefore, GMB workers received several weeks’ pay each, in some cases totalling over £4000.

 

Since these payments were not disclosed publicly, claims have arisen that they are ‘secret payments’ rewarding the GMB union workers for not participating in the strike. As a result of this, it is highly likely that there will be further strikes that will affect Birmingham over the Christmas period. 

 

Unite assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: “it is simply astounding. By making these secret payments, Birmingham City Council has effectively blacklisted Unite members for carrying out their legal right to defend their jobs last year. 

 

“As a result, the council’s secrecy and discriminatory behaviour has forced us to the point where we are pursuing legal action and now balloting for industrial action. the residents of Birmingham should be aware that the last thing Unite members want us to disrupt bin collections over Christmas.” 

 

David Lowe, aged 41 and refuse collector for over 6 years, said: “There’s some obvious discrimination going on here. It’s frustrating that the Council think they can get away with something like that. They should know by now that as a union we will stand our ground, we’re not going down without a fight!” 

 

Resident, Sadie Connolly lives in Acocks Green and her bin has not been collected for 4 weeks already. She said: “There’s obviously some existing delays since my bins haven’t been collected. There’s a lot of pressure on these bin men and people struggle to realise that they are overworked. 

 

I don’t blame them for what they are doing, it really is ridiculous that there has been special treatment for others, and I hope they get what they are looking for.” 

 

26-year-old refuse collector, Adam Cartwright said: “Having made some adjustments to the collection service following on from the strike last year, there were many things that we had agreed with the Council, but they have quite clearly avoided since. 

 

“We have explained numerous times that our work load is too much, and the structure of the service doesn’t help at all. This results in work being dropped and missed collections piling up. The Council don’t seem to care that we are struggling to keep on top of work, all they care about is cutting back on costs with no consideration of what will happen in the future. 

 

We are also receiving a lot of abuse from the members of the public in regard to their missed collections. They fail to understand that it is not our fault and we’re doing the best that we can.”

 

As a result of the industrial action, Birmingham City Council will introduce a contingency plan for waste collection services. They will aim to collect rubbish and recycling on the usual collection day, but between 6am and 10pm. Additionally, they will be working 7 days a week. If bins are not collected when expected, they should be left out until they have been.