Bin strike reaches one-year mark with no end in sight
Getty ImagesIt's exactly a year since bin workers in Birmingham staged their first walkout and according to unions there is no end in sight.
Union members started a series of one-day strikes on 6 January 2025, with an all-out strike launched on 11 March. It led to piles of uncollected waste in the streets and Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying he was concerned for public health.
Birmingham City Council said it would be going ahead with a new waste collection regime in the summer, even if industrial action continued.
Unite said there would be no end to the strikes until there was a fair deal for Birmingham's bin workers.
The council has ensured household waste collections are still made. But there have been no recycling collections since February. People have had to either hoard it, dispose of it with their household rubbish or make trips to the tip.
In Castle Vale, one of the biggest housing estates in Birmingham, there is little if any uncollected rubbish, with the authority managing to empty out the wheelie bins over the holiday period.
The Pioneer Group, landlord to more than half of Castle Vale's residents, also has its team ensuring everything is kept clean and tidy.
Residents Connie Marshall and Marie Notarantonio were union members who went on strike in the 1970s, so sympathise with bin workers, but still want the strike to end.
"I just don't understand it, you know for so long and... [it] hasn't come to an agreement," Marshall said.
"I think council and union reps need their heads banging together," Notarantonio added.
The intermittent walk-out began over plans to downgrade some job roles, which Unite said would result in up to 170 workers facing an £8,000-a-year pay cut.
But the dispute escalated and an indefinite all-out strike began on 11 March, with picketers delaying crews from leaving waste depots to collect rubbish, before a High Court injunction was granted.
EPAIn Small Heath, an inner-city area blighted by piles of uncollected waste on street corners throughout the strike, residents said sometimes bins could go uncollected for six or seven weeks.
Shafaq Hussain is frustrated that there's still no end in sight.
"They're not mediating, walking away, not being transparent to the community and nobody actually knows what's the deadlock," he said.
With many businesses along Coventry Road, even after rubbish is collected, waste soon starts piling up again.
"We're paying the council tax, everything, but they never pick [up] the bins," said Riaz Hussian, from Riaz Sweets.
Amid the ongoing bin strike, parts of the city have also seen "environmental criminals" littering pavements and parks with unwanted items.
Hockley resident Stephen Message was in parkland near New Spring Street North where a pile of discarded household rubbish, including Christmas wrapping paper and other items such as pushchairs, have been dumped near a waste bin. The mess has been there for more than a week.
The park is close to the Soho Loop section of Birmingham's Mainline Canal and some other dumped items in the park, including a mattress, have been there for weeks, despite residents reporting them to the council.
"People are taking advantage of the fact that there's a waste bin and they're just dumping rubbish whenever they want," Message said.
"Who in their right mind is going to want to sit on this bench and have a view of the canal with this here?
"I just think it's horrible, it just shows they [fly-tippers] have no consideration for the community."
The city council said 1,753 tonnes of waste had been collected at kerbside on 29 December and it was "identifying the root cause of the fly-tipping problem to tackle the issue".
There were now 275 union members taking industrial action as opposed to 370 at the beginning of 2025, which it said was "mainly" due to voluntary redundancies.
Waste collections had improved in recent months, although recycling has been suspended since industrial action began.
"During this industrial action and despite the initial disruption, we've continued to deliver a collection of residual [waste] for all households across the city and productivity has actually increased by nearly a quarter," said councillor Majid Mahmood.
"The reports of missed collections have decreased by more than 50%."
Mahmood told the BBC the council would also be recruiting staff for a new food waste collection service set to be rolled out from June, alongside the previous recycling service.
"June of this year, whether or not industrial action continues, we will be rolling out a recycling service back again across the city and introducing a food recycling service," he said.
"If industrial action continues then we will be recruiting new staff to operate the new service which is the food recycling," he added.
Mahmood, cabinet member for environment and transport, called for Unite to come back with a "constructive suggestion" that the council could work with to bring staff back into work.
"We've been negotiating with Unite now for 12 months and we've made multiple offers, fair and reasonable offers to Unite, all of which have been rejected," he said.
Mahmood added that workers involved in the original dispute had accepted alternative employment with the same pay and same grade or had taken the offer of voluntary redundancy.
Talks to end the dispute broke down in early summer, with the council announcing in July it was pressing ahead with its restructuring plans.
But Unite have stayed firm on their industrial action.
In a statement, the union said: "Our members resolve remains rock solid in the face of the council's attempt to scapegoat and punish them for the mess politicians have made in Birmingham.
"There will be no end to the strikes, until there's a fair deal for Birmingham's bin workers."
Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
