Bin strike pledges made at Birmingham hustings, but fury remains among voters

Party leaders and individual candidates were divided over a number of issues when they gathered for the Big BirminghamLive Election Hustings this week.

But one thing which they all agreed on was that resolving the bins strike, now in its second year, should be an immediate priority for any future leadership at Birmingham Council.

The strike, triggered by a dispute between the Labour-run council and Unite the union, left residents living next to huge rubbish heaps during its height and sparked tales of ‘cat-sized rats’.

With the industrial action attracting unwanted headlines from across the world, opposition councillors have voiced their horror at the city being ‘trashed nationally’ and becoming an ‘international laughing stock’.

Such anger can still be seen right across the city ahead of May’s local elections, which will decide which party or coalition runs the council for the next four years.

Candidates at the Birmingham hustings all set out how they would try and break the bins strike deadlock and said it would be one of the most urgent matters to address if they end up in a position of power.

But whoever takes charge will face residents who are deeply frustrated and sceptical over the strike situation, as well as litter and fly-tipping woes in their community.

This was clear in the ‘neglected’ estate of Druids Heath in south Birmingham, where piles of stinking rubbish could still be seen blighting pavements earlier this month.

“It’s disgusting,” one resident said, referring to a heap of bin bags metres away from his home. “The council does not care.”

He went on to say he had voted Labour before in the past but would not do so again on May 7.

“They’re [Labour] going to lose a lot of seats,” he said, making a grim prediction for the party. “I am not going to vote for them, definitely not.”

Over in Selly Oak, resident Catherine Zinetti recently admitted that she was embarrassed to live in the area as the bins strike rumbles on.

“There’s rats and they’re bigger than the cats,” the 66-year-old said. “Why should we have to pay petrol money to take the rubbish to the tip when we’re paying our council tax?

“It’s horrible, you sit here and all you can see are rats going across the road.

“We’re meant to be the second biggest city in England, it’s a disgrace, absolutely disgusting.

“We’re suffering,” she continued. “You walk down and it stinks, I’m embarrassed to live around here.”

She added that she cannot have her grandchildren visit due to the state of her street, adding: “That hurts me to the core.”

Such exasperation was echoed by Lozells resident Jane Majid, who describes living near a rubbish pile as “diabolical” and also says she has seen “rats as big as cats”.

She claims that issues with waste had plagued her road for around 20 years and got worse due to the impact of bins strike.

“This has been going on for years and years and years,” she said “It’s always been like this.

“It’s not nice living here – it’s embarrassing when you have got relatives coming round.”

Another resident in the area, who lives opposite a spot where rubbish is dumped, added: “You don’t want to get up in the morning and be seeing that.

“You don’t want to live like that, it’s embarrassing.

“We are paying our council tax and for what? It’s disgusting, it’s really terrible.”

This palpable fury, seen across Birmingham, awaits whoever has control over the city council post May 7, the day of the local elections.

The pressure will immediately be on to provide to some hope to weary and disillusioned Brummies and to also prove they can make a difference in finding a resolution.

Here’s what party leaders and others had to say at the BirminghamLive hustings this week about the bins strike:

Shakeel Afsal (Independent): Said striking bin men just want to “be able to feed their families” and added: “We do need to negotiate, we do need to look at legal but we also need to look at the sheer incompetence in terms of how we got to this place in the first place”.

Robert Alden (Conservative): Argued the first step to ending the strike was the ‘people at the top of the council getting in with the people from the top of the union and setting the red lines’ before negotiators debate those points. The council’s leadership would then be brought back into the conversation ‘unlock logjams’.

John Cotton (Labour): Said the council ‘continues to engage to try and find a negotiated settlement to this dispute’. Added that ‘what’s being asked of the council would result in further equal pay liabilities’.

Roger Harmer (Liberal Democrats): Described negotiations ending last July as “appalling” and said they need to “get the lawyers in a room and come to a common understanding of what the legal position is”.

Nosheen Khalid (Independent): Described the situation as “absolutely shameful”, argued Unite were open to negotiations resuming for several months and said the strike could be “easily resolved through dialogue”.

Jex Parkin (Reform UK): Said the impact of the strike was a “sad indictment on the second city” and that the party would have the “right people” in any negotiations, such as business leaders. Added that the “bridging the legal gap in advice being received” was an important factor.

Julien Pritchard (Green Party): Described the strike going on for this long as “scandalous” and said the council needed to get ‘back round the table as soon as possible’ with Unite.

The bins strike dispute was initially sparked by the loss of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer role, with striking workers claiming they face a pay cut of £8,000.

The council has disputed this figure and insisted that a ‘fair offer’ was made before negotiations came to an end last summer.

Last month, council leader John Cotton said he wanted to “get round the table with Unite as soon as possible”. He said this week that the council ‘continues to engage to try and find a negotiated settlement to this dispute’.