Brum bin strikers regain momentum as agency workers join action

Solidarity with the Birmingham bin strike

After nine months of the Birmingham bin workers’ indefinite strike, there was a sense of regained momentum outside the Sherlock Street depot on Monday.

Job&Talent agency workers, who had previously been used as scab labour, joined the picket lines for the first time.

Around 200 Unite union members and their supporters rallied outside the city centre site in the morning.

The Labour-run council had been forced to shut all the city’s bin depots.

“Morale is really picking up because of it,” striker Sam told Socialist Worker. The agency workers, who have joined Unite, voted by 100 percent to back the strike after management’s bullying, harassment and blacklisting.

“It was about 20 agency workers when they balloted. But all in all, about 30 agency workers have walked out,” Sam explained.

“We’re working to get the drivers out to join us—that’s the key. The more that come out, the more trucks that stay put—and trucks staying put is crucial to putting pressure on the council.”

Striker David said that the picket lines have been “going strong”. “The agency workers coming out is a bit of a boost, but I think we’re standing firm regardless,” he told Socialist Worker.

He slammed the “disgraceful and outrageous” actions of the Labour council. “It’s all lies, blatant lies,” he said. “The council keeps going on about this ‘fair and reasonable’ offer—what offer?

“They might be labour in name, but they don’t act like it. The money they’ve spent breaking the strike—whose side are they on?”

Zarah Sultana, the left wing Your Party MP, joined the picket line. “When trade unions are on the front line, it is the responsibility of socialist MPs to show solidarity,” she told Socialist Worker. 

Sultana slammed Labour’s attacks as “completely unacceptable—especially when it comes from a Labour council under a Labour government that is also watering down workplace rights”.

“We have not ended the era of austerity,” she said. “Labour is carrying on with cuts and those always get passed down through local government. The bin workers are on the front lines of those cuts.

“Local councils are happy to pay loads of money to senior management. But when it comes to paying the workers who keep this city clean, keep this city running, they are told there’s no money for that.

“We don’t accept that framing—show solidarity with workers struggling wherever they are.”

Ayoub Khan, the Your Party MP who previously suggested the military should break the strike, wasn’t on the picket line.

Unite rep and striker Danny told the rally, “We need a genuine working class party, because the Labour government has failed us.

“They’ve stood by as workers like us have been forced onto picket lines and they’ve done nothing to help. But together, united, organised and determined we will win.”

The strike’s momentum has been up and down. Over the summer were on the front foot after mass pickets that shut depots.

After using the courts to ban disruptive picket lines and threatening compulsory redundancies, the council regained the initiative.

But agency workers joining the action means Birmingham council bosses face a serious problem.  The core of their strategy—scab labour—could be undermined.

Unite leaders must try to win as many agency workers as possible to the strike and harness the regained momentum. They have to use that to build pressure, not simply funnels any newfound energy into the negotiation room.

The main task is to build mass picket lines to keep the depots shut.

• Some workers’ names have been changed