How is Birmingham's bin strike going to be resolved?

It has been more than a year since Birmingham's bin workers went on strike.

Up to 350 Unite the Union members began a series of one-day strikes over pay and the removal of a couple of roles on 6 January 2025, with an all-out strike launched weeks later on 11 March.

Throughout the dispute, the council has employed agency workers to collect household waste, but at times, piles of rubbish have grown on pavements and street corners while many bins overflow.

Recycling has not been collected for more than a year, with residents taking to it to the tips themselves, organising with neighbours to do pick ups or simply hoarding it. Many say they have to put recycling in their household waste bins.

The strike has been bitter, with collections by agency workers being disrupted on several occasions as striking workers blocked lorries from leaving depots. The issue has ended up at the High Court. According to BBC Verify, agency workers cost about £38,000 a year, if they are employed full time.

The city council said it would be going ahead with a new waste collection regime in the summer, even if industrial action continued. Leader John Cotton recently said putting a timeline on the end of the strike would be foolish as it could not settle on the basis of what Unite has been asking.

Unite said there would be no end to the strikes until there was a fair deal for Birmingham's bin workers. It wants an end to proposed pay cuts for some workers which it says will leave them £8,000 per year worse off. The council has denied this figure.

With no end in sight the BBC looked at what might have to happen for the dispute to end.

If no agreement is reached, the strike could potentially continue for many more months.

"Both parties have extended effort, money and propaganda on their current position," Dr Roger Seifert, an industrial dispute expert from the University of Wolverhampton said.

"The union has taken this from a local dispute into a national one. The union may believe that if they do back down, other councils could behave in the same way."

At the start of February, Cotton reiterated he wanted to find a solution and the door remained open to "realistic proposals" from the Unite union.

Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: "We would look to make a compromise so we are not further exacerbating any equal pay issues.

"So we are not going down the road of any illegality in any way and further, we would be more than prepared to look at how we look at modernizing the service in the future."

Offering any more money than they have already could jeopardise a crucial agreement with two other unions on equal pay for thousands of female workers, the council said.

The equal pay issue was one of the key factors in the authority declaring effective bankruptcy last year when it said it was facing a bill of £760m to settle the claims.

"This is something overseeing commissioners also maintain," said the BBC's Birmingham political reporter Kathryn Stanczyszyn.

"But, Unite dispute this entirely, saying there are ways to resolve the issue, particularly over the drivers' role and that legal advice they have taken and published has shown this.

"The council says its own legal advice says differently, but it can't make that public as there are too many sensitivities."

If the individuals who are striking believe the pay they are getting from the union is not sufficient compared to the pay they would normally receive, they could find alternative work or walk away.

However, Seifert believes support they are receiving from mega pickets and other union groups could be encouraging them to continue striking.

Another question is, how long will Unite continue to pay daily hardship allowances to striking workers?

And, if there are extra financial considerations, what could that mean?

"For instance, if a recent High Court case alleging contempt over the injunction against bad behaviour at depots goes against them [the union] there could be a hefty fine. We're still waiting for that," Kath Stanczyszyn said.

"And, from the council's side, they are tens of millions of pounds over normal budget trying to keep the bins emptied already and they now want to launch a new service in June.

"There will be a huge financial consideration for them if they do this without their normal workforce, but they have said they will commit to that."

Council elections take place in Birmingham in May with all 101 seats up for grabs, while Unite the Union leadership elections take place in March.

John Cotton has been the leader of Labour-run Birmingham City Council since May 2023, while Sharon Graham has been the general secretary of Unite August 2021.

If the leadership of both, or one of the two sides change, could new talks take place if new leaders have a new view on the dispute?

Back in April, Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice told Times Radio the strikes could be tackled with a Doge-like approach (an approach which looks for efficiencies).

The Conservatives have said they will end the strike. Leader Councillor Robert Alden said: "If we take control of the council in May this year, we'll reinstate weekly bin collections, create dedicated clean-up crews to tackle rubbish on the streets, and end the equal pay liabilities created by Labour."

Thirty-five Labour MPs signed a letter in support of striking Birmingham bin workers in January and called on the prime minister to take action to end the dispute.

The letter also repeated a threat from Unite to reconsider its links with Labour, if the situation was not resolved.

Experts said the combination of Labour MP's and the elected Labour mayor, alongside relevant members of the cabinet for local government, "could have intervened earlier, and they could have put massive pressure on the council".

"People from within the Labour party could have acted as an honest broker, because unite is a big donor to the Labour party so you would have thought that senior people within the Labour party would have wanted to get involved," Seifert said.

However, political reporter Stanczyszyn said "commissioners and the Labour government have all made it clear that they think the council is doing the right thing and it's up to the workers to end this".

"There are voices of dissent in the Labour Party and not just at grassroots level, recently Tahir Ali, Hall Green and Moseley MP, signed the letter that sympathised with the workers and says the council must do more to end it."

The prime minister addressed the bin strike in the House of Commons last year and said: "In relation to the situation in Birmingham, it is completely unacceptable.

"I fully support the council in declaring a major incident to resolve the situation. We'll put in whatever additional support is needed."

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