The ongoing bin strike in Birmingham has sparked a fierce public debate about council mismanagement, union power, and who should bear the cost when local services collapse.
With rubbish piling up on the streets for weeks and fears of a public health crisis growing, Independent readers have shared strong views on the root causes and the way forward.
When we asked for your views, many blamed years of government underfunding and austerity, accusing successive Conservative administrations of stripping local councils of the resources they need to function.
Others argued that Labour-led Birmingham City Council must take responsibility for financial missteps, including equal pay liabilities and poor investment decisions that left it bankrupt.
Some readers expressed sympathy for the refuse workers, noting the heavy and unappealing nature of the job, while others questioned the fairness of the current pay structure and accused unions like Unite of being inflexible.
Meanwhile, the idea of military involvement amid the strikes proved divisive. In our poll, 42 per cent said public health must come first and backed army support, while 33 per cent insisted this isn’t the army’s job, and 20 per cent said it should be limited to extreme cases.
Here’s what you had to say:
Decades of harm
Watching the news earlier and the top three stories:
The compensation for all those Sub-Postmasters – whilst I concede that has been going on for a long time – for 14 years we had the Tories failing to act.
The bin collection in Birmingham – whilst I absolutely concede that councils up and down the country are at best feckless and useless – we should remember that, starting with Cameron, every single council had their funding cut by at least 20 per cent.
Scunthorpe steel works – have we so soon forgotten the Tories’ asset-stripping of the nation?
Don’t misconstrue – I’m no fan of Starmer or the Labour party – it’s the Tories I loathe for all the harm they’ve done to this country, harm that will take decades to undo.
TomSnout
A heavy, dirty job
This dispute goes further back than pay cuts.
Years ago, the unions for some of the lowest-paid council staff (mainly female) came up with a good wheeze to get their members a hefty pay rise with compensation for “lost” back pay. They claimed that their members were doing equal work to the highest-paid unskilled manual workers – the binmen (mainly men) – and took the claim through the courts to get a ruling in their favour.
The huge compensation bill bankrupted or nearly bankrupted most councils, which didn’t have the money to give everyone the pay rise they demanded. So the only viable alternative to comply with the ruling was to equalise pay rates by cutting the pay of the binmen, sparking off the inevitable industrial disputes – that’s how we got to here.
But working on the bins is a heavy, dirty job that can impact health, and few would want to do it, which is why it has always attracted enhanced pay rates. I suspect this is recognised by most people.
Maybe the solution is to get the workers who claimed to be doing equivalent work to get the gloves on and start clearing the piles of rubbish themselves?
MellieC
Floodgates
Unite’s inflexible position is: “This is a pay cut.”
Yes. It is a pay cut. Birmingham Council is bankrupt, and it was bankrupted by a Labour council. Cuts in spending are regrettable, but unavoidable.
There is also a “floodgates” argument here. If Unite wins this round, it will be impossible to cut spending in any other area of the council’s activities. A precedent will have been set. So it is not a case of “It’s only 17 jobs, give them the money”. It is about the council’s right to manage its budget for 58,000 employees.
So the stakes are indeed high, for both sides. But Birmingham taxpayers deserve a break. They are not willing to give Unite a blank cheque.
SteveHill
Creation of new roles
The last strike was in 2017. The council agreed to the creation of a new role that pays up to £8k more than the binmen’s salary. This new role doesn’t actually exist – the men getting paid the extra money do the same job as those who don’t. But it ended the strike, so for a while things were OK, though to me the union is letting down the two members of each bin crew who don’t get the extra.
The council is facing legal cases from other employees who look at the Grade 3 job description and say that their jobs match or exceed it, and they are only on Grade 2 pay. So the council could face huge costs if it doesn’t get rid of the Grade 3 role. Hence, this strike.
Is Unite supporting the claims of the Grade 2 workers, or is it only interested in the binmen?
avidmidlandsreader
Sour investments
Another reason why councils are running out of cash is that they were allowed to take out massive loans to buy property investments over the last 15 years – when they did not have a clue what they were doing. Many of these investments have turned sour and have bankrupted some councils. Is it a surprise when the public is questioning the competence of governments and councils?
Why can’t high-calibre people be appointed to positions of responsibility to make well-informed and sensible decisions?
Mat
Funding death spiral
Local authorities are in a funding death spiral and have been for years… and successive governments seem happy to simply ignore the issue, while cutting financial support to local authorities to the bone.
Ultimately, this is the government’s responsibility – give councils more money so they can support vital services. Is an extra 10 miles of new motorway worth more than getting a city’s rubbish collected?
Priorities again… and we simply can’t be seen to give in to the unions, no matter how worthy the pay claim.
Who suffers? Us. Who will foot the bill? Us. Who will walk away smiling, utterly unaffected by any of this? Politicians.
captaintripps
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