By Cain O’Mahony
Despite a £265,000 fine on Unite for breaking an injunction, there is no let-up in the fight by the Birmingham bin workers to protect their pay, as the year long strike marks its first anniversary.
When in opposition, the Labour leadership made warm noises about repealing the Tories’ anti-trade union employment laws. Now in power, the fine imposed by the Courts shows sadly that for the Starmer government, it is ‘Tory busy as usual’.
The fine was for breaking an injunction taken out by the ‘Labour’ City Council back in July, not to obstruct scab bin lorries, after strikers ‘walked the wagons’ – that is, not by trying to stop them by a mass of pickets linking arms, but slowly walking as individuals in front of the trucks to slow them down.
Since then, the strikers have refrained from walking the wagons, but a support group known locally as ‘Persons Unknown’ have taken up the task on their behalf. Unite stress the current wagon walkers are not Unite striking members, so the City Council and the Courts will have to look elsewhere to slap on their injunctions.
Unite have retaliated against the Labour Council’s intransigence and the Labour government’s indifference on the strike, by withdrawing 40 per cent of its affiliation fees to Labour, worth £580,000. There is talk now that Unite should deduct further amounts equivalent to any further Court fines, should they occur.
Unite have not restricted their battle to the picket line, but have been canvassing local people for support. In a recent campaign, of 15,000 households visited, 6,000, plus 150 small businesses, agreed to put up posters in support.
The union has also been putting up posters across the city. It is significant that the vast majority of them are still there – although a refuse strike is a huge inconvenience for everybody, the general attitude in Birmingham is ‘well, I don’t like it but if someone tried to cut my wage by £8,000 I’d bloody well go on strike too’.
Only one person has been caught tearing down the union posters – Cllr Majid Mahmood, the City Councillor in charge of refuse services. Much to his embarrassment, he was caught on camera at 5.30am on a dark February morning, skulking around his local ward ripping the posters off fences and lamp posts.
His childishness is only matched by the intransigence of the City Council. It is estimated that the City Council has now wasted over £33mn trying to break the strike.
In the past, Labour councillors have wrung their hands, claiming that the deal on the table negotiated by ACAS back in May 2025 was blocked by the government-imposed commissioners then running the city. But Birmingham City Council has now moved out of its ‘Section 114 Notice’ and it is no longer deemed ‘bankrupt’. Labour councillors could now make decisions with no interference from the commissioners, and no longer have that excuse to hide behind.
If the City Council lets the dispute drag on into the forthcoming May elections, Labour will face meltdown.
Birmingham’s Banner Theatre have produced a fund raising ‘single’ in support of the bin workers, Power to the bin workers – unite for workers’ rights. You can make your donation and download the song by visiting the Unite website.
[Feature picture shows the Banner Theatre group performing their fund-raising song in Birmingham at a showing of the new film, Iron Ladies, which tells the story of the ‘Women Against Pit Closures’ campaign]
