Birmingham Bin Workers Score Significant Victory Against Blairite Labour Council Now Prepare For The Next Battle

Birmingham Bin Workers Score Significant Victory Against Blairite Labour Council Now Prepare For The Next Battle

The Socialist Party salute the marvellous campaign of Birmingham’s bin workers. Birmingham council have backed down in their battle with the city’s bin workers on the eve of a High Court hearing to determine whether their 106  threatened redundancies were lawful.

The council have agreed to withdraw the redundancies and give the affected workers new job titles and duties. They will now be promoting recycling among residents but still be working on bin lorries and maintaining their current grade, pay and conditions.

In addition a victimised shop steward will be reinstated,  unions will be included in a forum on future changes to the waste management service,  and there will be no changes for at least 15 months. The concession the union has made is to agree to a five-day working week but there will be no increase in working hours.

The scale of this victory, after 12 weeks of action, can’t be underestimated - a hard-nosed Blairite council hiding behind a union bashing chief executive has been totally humiliated.

The council, who said that these cuts were an economic necessity have been forced to eat their words and have also agreed to pay Unite the Union’s legal costs. They have spent £6 million of public money in an attempt to break the union.

No doubt this last minute climb down was a recognition that they faced losing the case and incurring even more disdain from the public by wasting even more of their money on a campaign that never had widespread public support.