Birmingham bin strike to continue as deal rejected

A strike by bin workers in Birmingham is set to continue after the latest pay offer by the city council was “overwhelmingly” rejected.

It follows a month-long stand-off between members of the Unite union and the Labour-run authority as bin bags and fly-tipped rubbish have piled high on streets.

Unite said the city council’s “partial” offer was “totally inadequate” and did not address the potential pay cuts for 200 drivers.

The council has previously said the offer on the table was a fair one.

Unite’s national lead officer Onay Kasab said 97% of those who voted rejected the council’s deal, on a 60% turnout.

“They could see through what this so called proposal meant, it simply failed to deal with all of the issues and it also nailed the lie,” he said.

The union’s general secretary Sharon Graham said the rejection was “no surprise as these workers simply cannot afford to take pay cuts of this magnitude to pay the price for bad decision after bad decision”.

The dispute centres around the council’s decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles.

The union argued that the role brought safety expertise to an “often dirty and dangerous job”, and said about 170 affected workers faced losing up to £8,000 annually due to the decision.

Birmingham City Council, which disputes both the number of staff affected and the sums of money quoted by the union, said the WRCO role was not industry standard, and did not exist in other councils.

Councillors said earlier this month that with various offers on the table no worker “needed to lose a penny”.

However, speaking on Monday, Mr Kasab said the result of the ballot was proof that the dispute was more than “simply about 17 workers” – a number quoted by the council.

He said: “This is about huge pay cuts and hundreds of people, it’s time now for us all to sit down, no more negative briefing, and let’s reach a negotiated resolution and solution.”

At the end of March, the council declared a major incident, saying that some 17,000 tonnes of rubbish was lining the city’s streets.

Some residents have also reported an increase in rats and other vermin.

One refuse collector told the BBC on Monday that the mood among their colleagues was “powerful”, while another said their sentiments remained unchanged.

“As much as we want a resolution, none of us are willing to lose money,” they added.

In recent days, military planners have been called in to help deal with the situation.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said that was not about “boots on the ground” but it would help get waste cleared.

Other neighbouring authorities have also stepped in to help clear rubbish.

“We’ve got over two-thirds of the rubbish cleared off the streets now, this week we’ll start to see cleaning up the pavements and streets as well as the clearance of all of that rubbish, I’m very pleased about that,” Rayner said.

“The kids are off school – obviously it’s Easter holidays, we want that rubbish cleared.”

Sadia Khan, the chairperson of Friends of Spark Green Park, said while she sympathised with those on strike, “rejecting another offer is just going to make the whole population a lot sicker”.

She said dead cats had been found in parks and that she suspected it was due to them eating rat poison left out to reduce the growing problem of vermin.

“I know it’s a financial crisis people are struggling to manage, and everyone deserves a better wage, but there’s a limit to how long this can go on,” she said.

“How much can you can risk the health of a population? Over a million people will be very, very impacted by things if it carries on.”

Last week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was very concerned by the public health situation in Birmingham.

The local authority is facing criticism, meanwhile, for pressing ahead with plans to switch from weekly to fortnightly collections while the strike remains unresolved.

Leaflets about the change have appeared in residents’ letter boxes, but Martin Mullaney, a former councillor for the city’s Moseley and Kings Heath ward, said the timing was “politically insensitive”.

The leaflets state residents will have a new green recycling bin to be collected fortnightly, a food bin to be collected weekly, and a black bin to be collected fortnightly on alternate weeks to recycling collections.

Although an all-out strike began on 11 March, there have been a series of on-off walkouts since January and some residents have told the BBC they have not had recycling collected in 2025.