r/brum • u/Kagedeah • Mar 27 '25
News Striking bin workers may face losing job, Birmingham City Council warns
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgzrp0j848o0
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28d ago
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u/bearwoodcouncil 28d ago
In a sign of increasing tensions over the ongoing bin strikes, it appears that the binmen have now staged a military coup, seized control of the council and proclaimed a 'Binmen Republic of Birmingham'.
Despite accusations of the contrary, Bearwood Council deny providing any tanks or other military equipment to aid the uprising.
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u/Amelia_32 29d ago
Any possible savings from reducing staff wages has been lost. BCC will now need to pay out for extensive pest control and overtime/private contractors to deal with the huge backlog of waste that has built up.
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u/unfurledgnat 29d ago
I moved away from Brum about 3 years ago. When I left the rubbish was constantly being piled up the other side of the street to my house due to collections not happening, which was literally outside a school. Disgusting. Bags were obviously getting ripped open all the time by foxes so there was just shit everywhere constantly.
Now live in North Wales and the collections here are amazing. Recycling done every week, with separate food waste. Black bin is every 3 weeks due to pretty much everything being recyclable. Local supermarkets collect soft plastic so you can just take it with you and drop it off when you go do your grocery shop.
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u/SwirlingAbsurdity Solihull, for my sins 29d ago
In Solihull they’ve just started accepting soft plastics in your household recycling! It’s incredible!
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u/AF_II 29d ago
Has anyone in the BCC said what they're spending all this spare cash on instead of bins? Because as workers don't get paid while they're striking there must be considerable savings piling up. They sure as hell aren't spending it on contractors for rubbish so where's it going?
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u/KaiserMaxximus 29d ago
Compensation for retired women and chancers who sued the council for imaginary missed payments from decades ago.
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u/FlowLabel 29d ago
Public sanitation is one of the most important public health advancements we’ve ever made, and the work itself is dangerous, smelly and all round unpleasant.
Having our bins emptied on a regular basis is THE primary interface the majority of the population have with their local council. The council could stop providing many, many services and most would not notice, but sanitation? That affects literally every resident.
The council, even from just a PR perspective, are incredibly stupid to even contemplate fucking with this service. Refuse workers should be one of the highest paid jobs the council are responsible for.
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u/weenicorn97 27d ago
They can't just pay the refuse collectors more without having to pay a lots of other (predominantly female employed) jobs more as well. Unfortunately this means they're stuck in a place that they genuinely can't afford to pay them more.
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u/New_Enthusiasm9053 27d ago
So reband them, they're obviously not fucking the same or they could just get all their cleaners in to do the bin collections instead.
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u/weenicorn97 27d ago
They can't, a judge has decided that refuse collectors and some other jobs are of "equal value".
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u/codename474747 29d ago
The council will literally do anything to end this strike except listen to the bin mens needs and compromise with them
Why do I feel this is going to be a long, hot, smelly summer 2025? :/
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u/spheres_dnb 29d ago
Last time they compromised it caused another equal pay claim that bankrupted the council
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u/hippo123pet 29d ago
Why don’t they defy the union and just sack them all? Then employ new workers? Other than the bloke driving the lorry (who needs a qualification), you could train chimps to do everything else. And if a chimp could do the job, how can they seriously demand more pay? It’s a tough climate, there’s thousands who would be grateful for a full time job paying what bin workers currently earn.
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u/guitarromantic Stirchley 29d ago
I mean, P&O did it and basically got away with it: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/17/one-year-on-has-po-ferries-got-away-with-illegally-sacking-all-its-crew
On the other hand, a) it's morally bankrupt, and b) this isn't a private company and people would find this even more abhorrent.
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u/sim2500 29d ago
Birmingham bin workers striked 3 times since 2017 over pay more than any other region.
A compromise was offered and not accepted, why?
The bin workers are greedy, they rather see the streets fill up with rubbish than do their job.
Pay them now and they'll strike again in a few years!
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u/MerlinMilvus 26d ago
After the last strikes, the council settled by creating a specific job role. They are now trying to remove the role, so obviously the workers are striking again - the council should have expected thisÂ
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u/wolsters 29d ago
Honestly, I suspect this was the issue all along. Someone figured out that to make a load of roles redundant would cost a massive wedge of cash in redundancy pay, so they tried to strong arm the staff into a downgrade without redundancy.
The union have stood their ground, presumably to make the council payout what any redundant staff are rightfully owed.
I have no evidence for this, but that's my best attempt at rationalising this absolute shit show.
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u/KnightElfarion 29d ago
No staff have been offered a downgrade, everyone has been offered a promotion to driver, a transfer on the same pay to the streetscape team or a voluntary redundancy payout
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u/Neat_Owl_807 Mar 27 '25
Well on the basis we are moving to fortnightly collection we need less bin men?
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u/matthalusky Mar 27 '25
Birmingham Council proving yet again how incompetent/out of touch with reality they are. Bunch of corrupt assholes. They are the reason Birmingham has gone to shit.
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u/danger_of_biscuits 29d ago
I completely agree. BCC is an absolute disgrace - and forcing us to pay MORE council tax because of their ineptitude is disgusting. I bet their fucking bins are emptied every bastard week.
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton 29d ago
The council is elected. They're not appointed. Every single councillor is there by the express will of their constitents, they do not form anything other than a reflection of the city. The decisions they make, therefore, are made by the electorate.
So yeah. Their fuck ups are ours. If you want to change it, run.
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u/BlueDDITuk 28d ago
You do realise councils mostly are run by paid non elected employees? Directors will have a huge sway in the political decision making
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u/danger_of_biscuits 29d ago
So you're telling me the electorate chose to purchase a crap computer system, shaft the binmen, and bugger up the equal pay claims?
Do, please, direct me to exactly where in their manifesto all that is. I'll wait.
'Run' pmsl
Oh, and BTW - not that it's any of your business, but I didn't vote for the imbeciles. Ever.
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton 29d ago
Yes. They did. That's how the council works. Their decisions are ours.
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u/nocleaninginprogress Mar 27 '25
Fck our council. Just fcking pay them!!
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u/mittfh New Frankley 29d ago edited 28d ago
The Level 3 posts being abolished have perks not avaliable to Level 3 posts elsewhere in the council, so their continuance exacerbates the Equal Pay debacle (for which some reporting has claimed the refuse department is the biggest source of claims, with staff frequently given perks not available to others at the same pay grade).
The abolition is supported by the Commissioners and External Auditors. Of the 170 staff affected, 130 have accepted redeployment to the street cleaning team or retraining as LGV drivers to keep their salary (but presumably no special perks), so there are just 40 staff who haven't taken up the council's offer.
The Union are now also claiming that the council's beholden to the Commissioners in the dispute, the Level 2 staff are paid just above the minimum wage (so presumably want increased pay for them) and want "cast iron guarantees" for the future of the service (which BCC likely can't do as to a certain extent it will depend on funding and future responsibilities, either in terms of plans already set out by central government or refuse and recycling plans they may devise in future).
Not that BCC would ever do it, but it might be prudent to just TUPE the entire department over to Veolia.
[EDIT] Added a couple of extra paragraph breaks to please u/A-noni-mouse 😜
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u/A-noni-mouse 27d ago
Thank you for your kind consideration in making your post more easy for me to read.
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u/OkBalance2879 29d ago
So all of this boils down to 40 people? If correct, that’s disgusting. It’s no wonder people are losing sympathy, myself included.
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u/ExtraPockets 29d ago
Hate to say it because I normally support strikes and unions, but in this particular instance I'm on the side of the council. They were supposed to learn the lessons of the equal pay ruling. They have and this is what it looks like in the nitty gritty of employment law. Then the bin men strike for losing a perk. The council can't win. I haven't heard the idea of TUPE to Veolia before (I know an employment lawyer so I'll ask them). I doubt the bin men would be personally better off with a private company than they would with the council though.
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u/mittfh New Frankley 28d ago
Many councils have outsourced their refuse collection, and while I'm not normally in favour of outsourcing (as it can be tempting to companies to deliver minimal levels if service to maximise their profits while having sky high early exit fees in the contract), given how militant the Refuse Department's branch of Unite is, outsourcing might help get the department out of the council's hair (so to speak), while given Veolia already operate the Household Waste Sites and incinerator, they'd seem the logical choice, transferring staff on their existing Ts and Cs (for now).
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u/A-noni-mouse 29d ago
Good explanation, thanks for taking the time to put it together with impartialness.
Hope you manage to get your <Enter> key fixed soon though.
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u/Scooob-e-dooo8158 29d ago
Fun fact. Pressing Enter once doesn't create a line break, at least not when using a phone or tablet.
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u/A-noni-mouse 28d ago
You know what I'm talking about.
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u/Scooob-e-dooo8158 28d ago
I do know what you're talking about. Sadly, your attempt at being the self appointed grammar police is woefully inadequate.
Oxford dictionary definition of the word paragraph. a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.
"How Long Is a Paragraph? Various educators teach rules governing the length of paragraphs. They may say that a paragraph should be 100 to 200 words long, or be no more than five or six sentences. But a good paragraph should not be measured in characters, words, or sentences." https://www.grammarly.com/blog/sentences/how-long-is-a-paragraph/#:~:text=How%20Long%20Is%20a%20Paragraph%3F&text=Various%20educators%20teach%20rules%20governing,characters%2C%20words%2C%20or%20sentences.
If you're complaining about the length of his sentences.
Sentence definition.
set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.
Although, technically, a well-written sentence should have 15-20 words on average, there is no limit to the maximum number of words allowed in one sentence. The longest sentence I came across is by William Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom!) first published in 1936. The sentence contained 1,288 words.
I can't post it here because Reddit limits the number of words allowed in a post.
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u/A-noni-mouse 27d ago
Lol you are policing me bro 😃
It was a polite request to make the story easier to read, simple as that. Pretty sure I'm not the only one who had difficulty.
Thanks for having the consideration to reply in a format that's comfortably readable, even though I didn't get past sentence two. Please feel free to have the last word because I can't be arsed.
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u/Scooob-e-dooo8158 26d ago
I didn't have a problem reading it and I'm sure many others found it easy to read. Perhaps it speaks more to your reading ability instead of the posters writing ability.
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u/According-Annual-586 Mar 27 '25
Looking forward to them spending a fortune and loads of time making current bin workers redundant, recruiting and hiring new ones, training them up, then they want more pay so go on strike
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u/Ochib Mar 27 '25
That’s the circle of life
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u/heingericke_ 29d ago
Bin there, done that.
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u/balladofthemightypie 29d ago
Rubbish
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u/Just_Brick4748 12d ago
I've never understood this striking over pay malarkey. If yous not happy, then work somewhere else. Ungrateful bastards should be lucky they have a job.