It’s a dispute that has already cost the leader of Europe’s largest local authority his job, as 222 days of strikes have left some Birmingham streets “knee-high” in bags full of vermin-infested rubbish.
Now hundreds of the city’s binmen are set for fresh industrial action this Christmas – the latest twist in a 16-month saga that has pitted trade union against union, and left Brummies dreading the “worst Christmas bin collections ever”.
The council had proposed changes in the binmen’s pay grades and working hours in 2017 in an effort to save £5million, and it was these proposals along with threats of redundancies that had lead to the strike by Unite binmen last year.
At its height, between June 30 and August 16, the strike was costing the city more than £300,000 every week, partly because the housing department had to bring in private contractors to clear rubbish at towerblocks.
Last week more than 300 members of the Unite trade union voted to impose an overtime ban from this Saturday, after accusing Birmingham city council of making “sweetheart” payments to rival GMB union-affiliated binmen who didn’t go on strike last year.
By allegedly paying off only GMB workers, Unite says the council has punished its members and marked them out as trouble-makers, effectively putting them on a “blacklist” which could affect their future work prospects with the council.
Unite has now launched an employment tribunal case, claiming the council made payments to about 100 GMB binmen, said to be up to £4,000 each.
The council admit a payment was made to GMB in September this year but claim it was compensation, overseen by Acas (advisory, conciliation and arbitration service), to the union for not having consulted it over structural changes to its waste management services.
GMB’s Stuart Richards told HuffPost UK: “We’ve been completely transparent about the payment agreed during ACAS discussions and all it entailed and we ask the council do the same so the proposed action can be averted.”
HuffPost UK spoke to one binman and Unite member who said he and many of his colleagues were disillusioned by the union, and didn’t want to strike.
“For the average binman this is not about wanting more money”
- Anonymous
The Birmingham worker, who did not want to be named, said: “It makes us look like greedy binmen but most of us don’t want to take action now – but have to because of union rules.
“But it seems odd and wrong to have two unions representing the same sort of workers squaring off with each other while their members and the public suffer.
“There’s a lot of egos involved in union management and we are just the pawns same as the general tax-paying public who will bear the brunt.”
He added: “The action stops short of a full strike but it will still be very disruptive with irregular collection times for bins and recycling.
“Basically it means we stop what’s known as ‘goodwill’ actions like not going back to base for breaks. That’s sad considering its supposed to be the season of goodwill.”
Another colleague, who also wished to remain anonymous, added: “There is a political agenda to all this and in my eight years as a binman in the city I’ve never seen anything like this sustained level of disruption.
“Last summer was a nightmare for many residents as rubbish piled up and we were at the wrong end of the public’s anger.
“Many of us live in the city, grew up here and have family and friends, so it’s hard to see them have to suffer.
“For the average binman this is not about wanting more money.”
Council leader John Clancy thought he had struck a deal with Unite in September last year, saying no jobs would be lost and the action was suspended only for a council report two weeks later to say the deal was “unaffordable”.
Redundancy notices were issued, sending workers back to the picket lines for another two months of action before a settlement was finally reached.
Clancy was forced to resign soon after saying he accepted he had made mistakes “for which he was sorry” and took “full responsibility”.
In a damning independent report into the 2017 strikes, unexpectedly released by the council on Thursday, Clancy is accused of acting “unlawfully” when he struck the deal with Unite.
Councillor Clancy acted “without authority or power”, says the report, published just days after Unite announced its latest action, but some cabinet members also failed to challenge him “for fear of losing their posts”.
Clancy has dismissed the report as “nonsense from start to finish” adding it is designed to cover up the failings of the council’s legal department.
Civic officials last year were forced to advise irate residents to simply leave their bins at the edge of their properties, promising that “they will be collected as soon as possible” amid the intermittent strikes.
Many people took the task on themselves, borrowing vans and flat-bed lorries to shift tonnes of rubbish which had been left dumped on city street corners in the sweltering heat.
Community activist and Pride of Britain award holder Tariq Jahan, from Winson Green, Birmingham, said he spent most of that summer making trips to the municipal rubbish tip in borrowed vans.
Jahan, 52, who was awarded for his compassion and dignity in the aftermath of his teenage son’s death during the 2011 summer riots, said residents had been left with no choice but to clear the streets themselves.
“I’ve been clearing up after flytippers around here for years but since the strikes began it got worse with bags of rubbish literally dumped outside people’s front doors and across the road from mine near an entrance to a park,” he said.
“Children walk past and there are still rats, pigeons and seagulls all over the place.
“The council couldn’t help because it was the same across the city but Birmingham is our home and it was making the area look bad.”
He added: “I was willing to pay for CCTV which the council did put up and it caught some of the culprits. But the cameras were removed after three months and installed in another street that had the same problem.
“There’s nothing that the ordinary person on the street can do expect to roll up their sleeves and do it themselves.
“Its just very frustrating knowing this dispute is still going to go on.
“I suppose if nothing else it builds up community spirit and resilience but I can think of much better ways.”
His views were echoed by Imran Hameed of the The Salma Food Bank Project in Birmingham and founding member of the Bearded Broz volunteer group that collected more than 120 tonnes of rubbish during last year’s strike.
He said: “For about five weeks we spent hours and hours making dozens of trips to the rubbish tip and yet we were hardly making a difference.
“We just couldn’t cope with the demand in the end and had to prioritise districts depending on how unhygienic the situation was getting.
“On some roads in the evenings we’d see rats as big as baby rabbits and cats and foxes all nosing around and getting into fights over the food scraps which they spread across the street – you could have made a wildlife documentary.”
Birmingham pest controller Ian Dawes has seen a “marked increase” in business in the last 16 months and warned that vermin which would normally struggle for food in winter would “thrive” on Christmas left-overs.
He said: “That in turn will mean the vermin will breed more successfully and there will be more of them who are fit and strong next spring and summer causing further problems.
“Winter is supposed thin out vermin because its harder to forage but as we saw last year they soon adapted to gorging from binbags on city streets in the baking heat.
“They are quick learners and will adapt to wherever the food source is located so in the long run its bad news all round if rubbish is left lying on the streets again.”
Birmingham city council waste management chair Cllr Majid Mahmood yesterday urged Unite to suspend action prompting his Tory counter-part Cllr Deirdre Alden to comment: “He promised us the ‘best Christmas ever’ for bin collections this year, but it looks set to be the worst.”