There’s been two massive developments in the long-running Birmingham bin strikes this week. First up, the workers have voted overwhelmingly to extend their strike action. This means that the industrial action could now continue well beyond the upcoming local elections in May 2026.

And second, the agency workers who were brought in by Birmingham council in an attempt to circumvent the strikes are instead joining the pickets. The workers, employed via the Job & Talent agency, are citing unsustainable workloads and bullying from the council’s refuse department.

Agency workers on the picket lines

The agency workers will now be able to join the picket lines officially from 1 December onwards, having voted for the industrial action. However, Unite also reported that some Job & Talent agency staff have already refused to cross the picket lines. They’re claiming that there’s a toxic culture within Birmingham’s refuse department.

Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, stated that:

This is a real escalation in the dispute with agency workers now joining picket lines due to the terrible way they have been treated by Job and Talent and Birmingham council.

Birmingham council is spending a fortune it doesn’t have on a dispute that could easily be resolved by agreeing a fair deal for workers.

Unite does what it says on the trade union tin we are totally committed to fighting for the jobs, pay and conditions of all its members. Agency and directly employed workers alike in Birmingham council’s refuse service have the union’s complete and utter support.

Job & Talent confirmed that Birmingham council employed the agency workers as part of their refuse collection team since before the strike. The company also stated that the number of agency workers being employed hadn’t changed since the industrial action began.

Taken together, those two facts shed interesting light on a statement from a Birmingham council spokesperson:

While we are disappointed the dispute has not been resolved as Unite has rejected all our offers, we are continuing to make regular waste collections and our contingency plan is working.

We have been collecting an average of approximately 1,330 tonnes of kerbside waste every day, more than we did prior to industrial action, and over the last six months we have collected over 100,000 tonnes of kerbside waste.

Someone should probably let them know that if:

Your agency workers are striking over unsustainable workloads,You’re not employing any more agency workers,The non-agency employees who used to work alongside the agency employees are already on strike

… then you probably shouldn’t boast that the amount of labour you’re having them do has gone up. Stating that ‘yes, we’re having agency staff do more than the work of both teams’ confirms that you’re over-working them, doesn’t it?

Long-running dispute

The industrial action now looks set to continue well beyond the 12-month mark. The workers began the strikes way back in January, and escalated them to all-out status in March.

This was a result of the council’s decision to slash the pay of drivers and senior loaders by as much as £8,000 a year. That’s over a fifth of their total pay. The workers targeted reported that the cuts would mean that they’d struggle to feed their families, and some could even end up losing their homes.

In spite of the council’s attempts to claim that Unite “rejected all our offers”, there haven’t actually been any formal negotiations since May. This was because the council went back on a “ballpark deal” struck by council chief executive Joanne Roney.

The union has stressed that, in spite of the council’s underhandedness, they’re still willing to negotiate. However, the council instead chose to vent its ire on its heavy goods vehicle drivers, firing and rehiring them in order to force them onto lower pay rates.

The council has also refused to give Unite evidence of its claim that it can’t pay the striking workers fairly because of concerns over equal pay. However, the union has taken advice from prominent equal pay barrister Oliver Segal KC that this simply isn’t the case.

‘Fully committed’

Onay Kasab, Unite’s national lead officer, said:

Residents of Birmingham will be rightly concerned to see that the misery of bin strikes can continue through Christmas, New Year and beyond May’s local elections but the council is solely responsible for the ongoing dispute.

Unite remains fully committed to return to meaningful negotiations to secure a fair deal for affected workers while also ensuring the endemic bullying culture and threats of blacklisting are stamped out.

At this point, Birmingham council is officially bankrupt. Residents of the city are increasingly concerned that they’ll be left footing the bill for the disruption inflicted by their local authority’s mismanagement. Unite’s forensic accountants have suggested that the council will have paid £15m over the course of 2025 as a consequence of the industrial action.

As ever, the council has the power to end this strike by agreeing a fair deal with workers. Instead, they’ve repeatedly chosen to mislead, to obscure the truth, and to punish workers for speaking out against their toxic culture. Unfortunately for the council, the union isn’t showing signs of backing down any time soon.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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