Labour has abandoned workers on strike.
By ISL
Birmingham City Council (BCC) Unite bin workers went on strike on 6 January because 170 affected workers face cuts in their wages of up to £8,000 a year. Then, as the council and commissioners refused to move their position on 11 March the strike became an indefinite all-out strike at the five refuse sites.
The council also wanted to abolish the safety critical Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role – resulting in pay cuts for 150 workers – as well as a catalogue of already implemented austerity measures across the service. Abolishing WRCO means undermining the safety critical measures that help to keep the bin workers and the public safe from the large moving trucks in busy roads.
In April BCC declared a major incident because of the effectiveness of the bin strike and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner met the council leaders to discuss clearing the “waste backlog” that piled up because of the bin strike. She also visited a refuse depot i.e. strike breakers. The strikers accused the government of “blaming the bin workers”. The government stands with the employers not the workers. This is a breaking point of many Unite workers and others with the Labour party.
The strike is about maintaining existing wages, conditions, health and safety systems already in place that the council want to remove. Bin workers have had to manage increased vehicle age and failures, accept cuts to overtime allowances and in nighttime allowances. In many council departments agency staff – not permanent staff – are being hired.
A bankrupt council
On 6 September 2023, the council had declared effective bankruptcy, and six commissioners, were subsequently appointed by a Tory government to run the council under emergency measures and the Labour government kept the commissioners in place. Since their arrival they have amassed over £2 million in fees and expenses, all funded by the local council tax. Birmingham Labour Party has not fought the commissioners but works with them, while Unite is urging the local government ombudsman to launch an investigation into a potential financial conflict of interest involving Birmingham’s government-appointed commissioners.
In July the council abandoned negotiations and is threatening to effectively fire and rehire the Unite Birmingham bin workers. Unite say that a deal had been reached with the council but the commissioners, who really control the council and not the elected councillors, decided the stop a deal. However, not even the combined weight of the council, national Labour party and commissioners have defeated the strike.
These attacks on workers have brought the industrial and political questions together as Labour are not the political voice of the working class, nor do they want to be. Labour, by the viciousness against workers have made this struggle to defend wages and conditions in Birmingham into a national issue, an issue for the whole trade union movement and workers everywhere.
The Unite July policy conference suspended the union membership of Angela Rayner, deputy Prime Minister and all Birmingham councillors who are Unite members for bringing the union into disrepute with a view to expelling them from the union.
There is a report in digital media that Birmingham residents are turning away from Labour in droves – angry at a heartless council, backed by the government, treating its workers & residents appallingly.
While this is going on Labour work with the police to try to defeat the pickets. In July striking workers were banned from organising more than six pickets gathering at the gates of depots ‘indefinitely’ and were ordered not to block bin lorries or risk being in Contempt of Court. This is the way Labour tries criminalising struggle to criminalise the just struggle of striking workers.
These attacks have put Birmingham’s bin strike at the heart of the Labour government’s relations with the trade unions and sharply pushes forward the need for a new party of workers and activists.
We say:
Trade unions mobilise for the bin workers mass pickets!
Build the links with striking workers in Unite, PCS, Unison, UVW, IWGB and BMA…!
Start building for a co-ordinated new strike wave!
