Wheelie Politics

You’d think Birmingham City Council would’ve learned something from its last bin strike back in 2017 – namely, that undervaluing refuse workers tends to end rather badly. But no. They’ve trundled right back into the same mess, bin lorry and all – and this time they’re dragging 21,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish behind them.

I've been sorting through some of the rubbish to get to the root of the problem.

At the centre of it all is a job title: Waste Recycling and Collection Officer. Doesn’t sound particularly incendiary, does it? But this modest-sounding role was created to patch over the wounds of the last pay dispute. Essentially, it bumped up wages for a number of workers to resolve equal pay claims. Fast forward a few years, and the council – having now managed to clock up a £760 million equal pay bill and declare itself effectively bankrupt – is scrapping the WRCO role to stop the bleeding.

Cue uproar from Unite, who claim up to 170 workers are facing pay cuts of £8,000 a year. The council, meanwhile, insists it’s just 17 people and they’ve all been offered equivalent roles, driver training, or redundancy packages. Who to believe?

Well, both – sort of. The union’s playing it wide, counting everyone who could have been affected by the role’s removal. The council’s playing it narrow, focusing only on those still refusing to sign on the dotted line. It’s a row over numbers that depend entirely on how you do the counting.

But here’s the rub. The union is flogging a narrative of betrayal – that the council is welching on a deal agreed in 2017. The council, on the other hand, is paddling furiously to avoid drowning in legal claims and financial collapse, and this WRCO business is just one more hole in the hull. Somewhere in the middle lies a festering mountain of black bin bags, a city crawling with rats, and residents setting fire to their own rubbish in despair.

And yet, there’s a bigger picture here. Birmingham isn’t alone. Councils across the country are cracking under the strain of years of underfunding, rising service costs, and – let’s not forget – Brexit-induced inflation and labour shortages. If you think this bin strike is just a local squabble over job grades, you’ve not been paying attention. It’s a canary in the coalmine.

So how do we sort it? Not by threats. Not by spin. And certainly not by pretending this is some tidy HR matter. No – this needs a grown-up fix. First off, bring in an independent arbitrator. Someone who can sift through the competing figures and stop this endless back-and-forth about whether it’s 17 workers or 170. Let’s see the truth – whatever it is – in black and white.

Next, give those affected a proper deal: two years of pay protection, tapering down to the new rate, while they retrain, move roles, or shift into better-paid driving posts. Not some hand-wavy promise of LGV training for a lucky few, but a clear, guaranteed path. Turn a slap in the face into an opportunity.

And knock it off with the redundancy-or-nothing routine. Offer meaningful alternatives. Create new roles with proper grading and clear progression. Workers don’t want to be treated like bin bags – used, tied off, and tossed.

Most of all, stop treating the public like mugs. This is what happens when councils are forced to choose between legality and loyalty – between not going bust and not breaking promises. Put out a joint statement. Say it together: "We’re broke, we’re cornered, but we won’t shaft our workforce in the process." Because this isn’t just about bins – it’s about trust.

Longer-term, central government needs to get off its backside and deal with the root cause. You can’t starve councils for a decade, saddle them with outdated pay systems and historic liabilities, and then clutch your pearls when the rats move in. It’s not just bin lorries that are full of rubbish – Whitehall’s promises are overflowing too.

The bins aren’t being emptied, the streets are a tip, and the public is caught in the middle – again. This isn’t just industrial action. It’s what happens when the social contract unravels and local government becomes little more than crisis management.