Thousands joined the Unison rally on April 24 outside Birmingham town hall as the fight against Birmingham City Council’s attempts to impose Single Status (which means big wage cuts for thousands of workers) continues.
Unison had called two day strike on 23-24 April and there were concerns that support for the action was dropping away. The local media had made much about the bin men refusing to join the action.
Certainly on the 23 April, response across the City Council workforce was patchy. Many felt that the council unions had lost momentum in the campaign, by not calling further action since the first strike in February, until late April.
The mood changed however, with news that the civil service union PCS and the National Union of Teachers would also be coming out on 24 April. More Birmingham workers came out on the second day, including the Perry Barr refuse depot which had not taken action previously, and other bin men joined the action. The demonstration saw united defiance by council workers, teachers and civil servants in what was a noisy but well tempered protest that engulfed the city.
Maintaining momentum for the campaign will be a major challenge for the trade unions. The City Council are now saying the appeals procedure could take anything up to two years. There is no doubt they will want to drag out the process in a bureaucratic war of attrition to wear the workforce down. The unions will have to be quite skilful in battling this. But as 24 April demonstrated, where a clear lead is given, and where workers begin to realise they are not isolated but part of a growing movement, council workers will respond.
