On 14 April, Birmingham refuse workers rejected a rotten deal offered by the city council, which still promised pay cuts for over 200 workers.
Whilst threatening pay cuts, the council is more than happy to pay around £18.9 million for the scab labour used to undermine the strike.
Birmingham city council leader John Cotton earns nearly £80,000. In such difficult times, however, he has not considered taking a pay cut himself.
So @BhamCityCouncil spend:
💰 £900k a yr for 4 senior execs
💰 Nearly £300k a yr for CEO Joanne Roney
💰 £1m a yr for 8 Tory-appointed commissioners
💰 £200k+ a yr for Chief Commissioner Max Caller
😮 How much on agencies & external contractors to try to break the strike?
❓ But… pic.twitter.com/uHzpifnWwE— Unite the union: join a union (@unitetheunion) April 20, 2025
Starmer’s Labour has rushed to support Cotton and his ilk. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner even gave the green light for the army to be called in to help with bin collections.
‘Sir’ Starmer, our knight in rusty armour, has condemned the strike as “completely unacceptable”. So much for ‘Labour’ being the party of the working class!
Divide and rule
Cynically, the council and media have attempted to pit workers against each other.
Council leaders claim that, due to long-overdue equal pay settlements awaited by female staff, male refuse workers should accept a pay cut.
The council, which declared bankruptcy two years ago partially due to these equal-pay claims, has tried to absolve itself of any guilt.
Instead, the current situation is being presented as a conflict between male and female workers, where the male workers are denying equal rights to women by demanding that their jobs not be cut.
This is a disgusting, divisive lie on the part of the council, the establishment, and its mouthpieces.
“Proud of coming from Birmingham. And proud of the bin workers, sticking to what they believe in. I’ll feel even prouder when they win!”
Thanks for your support @UB40OFFICIAL ✊ pic.twitter.com/YBRWNr2hFd— Unite the union: join a union (@unitetheunion) April 19, 2025
Despite the original equal-pay case happening in 2012, the council found money to introduce a new outsourced IT system. The implementation of this was botched, driving the council further towards bankruptcy.
It is very difficult to find actual numbers, since the financial books are not open to the public. What is clear, however, is that, as is always the case under capitalism, the bosses are deciding how to spend residents’ money, while workers bear the burden for any consequences.
Unions in opposition
The deep anger and militancy of the striking workers has prompted Unite general secretary Sharon Graham to come out in opposition to Starmer’s Labour and the council.
“The dispute in Birmingham is about pay cuts,” Graham correctly asserted, responding to the bosses’ cynical divide-and-rule tactics. “Workers cannot pay the price for crisis after crisis that is not of their making.”
The bin workers didn’t start this crisis, and they shouldn’t pay for it. It wasn’t the bin workers who failed to pay female staff fairly. And it wasn’t they who wasted £216.5m on a bungled IT system.
Graham’s more combative tone – and the all-out nature of the strike – reflect the pressure from below that is making itself felt on the union leaders, as workers begin to move into action in response to the attacks on their pay, jobs, and conditions.
With an onslaught against the working class looming, this pressure from rank-and-file workers will only increase.
What next?
The Birmingham bin strike stands as a reminder of the ugly face of capitalism.
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Any pretence of democratic freedoms has disappeared. The right to strike is being undermined by scab labour and the declaration of a ‘major incident’. The police have been deployed to harass workers. And the media has vilified the workers with smears and falsehoods.
This struggle is also a reminder that such conditions are not unique to Birmingham. The crisis in our city is only the most acute example of a situation that is brewing everywhere. Flammable material exists across the whole country.
The period ahead will therefore see more than one ‘Birmingham’ emerge – both in terms of the chaos in local government and the militant struggles in response.
Finally, the rubbish piling up on Birmingham’s streets is a reminder that nothing can ever happen in society without the permission of the working class.
Workers don’t need bosses or bureaucrats. They know best how to run local services. If we, the working class, controlled our workplaces and communities, we could transform them overnight.
The refuse workers have taken bold action. The stage is set for the trade unions to launch a mass campaign of coordinated struggle by all public sector workers against the rotten council, and against all of Labour’s attacks on the working class. We must seize this opportunity.
