As rubbish bags are continuing to pile up in Birmingham this Easter weekend amid union strikes, seven council workers were seen unloading just one car full of rubbish today.
Staff were based at several mobile refuse collection vans at Birmingham Central Mosque Car Park on Sunday to help clear the overflowing streets of waste.
Workers were seen helping local residents unload their rubbish from cars and vans and placing it into refuse lorries parked up outside.
Seven employees were seen unloading rubbish from a grey car on Sunday morning, all dressed in orange high vis.
While few residents took advantage of the Easter Sunday mobile collection point, tonnes of fly-tipped waste was still in evidence around the city.
Bin bags which appear to have been ripped open by vermin with rotting food spilling out lay stacked on street corners along with old sofas, beds and building materials.
One resident said: ‘It’s madness to me to have so many bin men operating these mobile collections when the worst rubbish is piled up on the streets.
‘Birmingham is a grim place to be at the moment but it seems plain daft to have bin men twiddling their thumbs when there’s piles of rubbish on the streets.’
Staff were based at several mobile refuse collection vans at Birmingham Central Mosque Car Park on Sunday to help clear the overflowing streets of waste
While few residents took advantage of the Easter Sunday mobile collection point, tonnes of fly-tipped waste was still in evidence around the city
Familiar scenes across the city see mounds of rubbish stacked up outside people’s homes
Another said: ‘The rubbish is attracting rats and all sorts of other vermin.
‘It’s disgusting. I was really suprised to see bin men just sitting around at the collection point – why on earth not get a lorry and start picking up the rubbish all over the city?’
The low turn-out comes two weeks after locals in Tyseley swarmed bin men with their waste and created a 5ft high rubbish mountain which took hours to clear.
This is the latest mobile refuse collection spots, with a new location chosen each day.
Volunteers from Project Clean Sparkhill were out in force cleaning the streets over the bank holiday weekend.
City environment boss Councillor Majid Mahmood said: ‘We have prioritised our street cleansing teams to remove fly tips that have accumulated on the city’s streets.
‘An operational decision was taken to divert resource from one of our mobile household waste centres next week to fly tip removals. This will remain under constant review to ensure we continue to deploy our resources to the areas of greatest need.
‘Our approach will be evolving as we work tirelessly to clear up our city.’
People dispose of their rubbish using a mobile refuse collection service at Birmingham Central Mosque Car Park, Birmingham
Seven staff members were seen unloading rubbish from a single car on Sunday morning
Council workers have been employing mobile bins across the city since the beginning of the strikes
Leader of the Labour council, John Cotton, said on Thursday that images of the strikes ‘pained me personally’
The Labour-led council was humiliated on Monday when the striking workers rejected their latest pay offer by an overwhelming majority and fresh talks on Wednesday ended without agreement.
Leader of the Labour council, John Cotton, said on Thursday that images of the strikes ‘pained me personally’.
Union is one of Labour’s biggest donors but its relationship with party has become troubled since Sir Keir Starmer’s arrival with the union cutting its funding and refusing to endorse the party’s manifesto at last year’s general election.
However, there is no suggestion that Unite is officially considering breaking from Labour with members voted to maintain their links with the party two years ago.
The union has also found itself at odds with Labour Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner urged it to agree to the council’s latest offer, which its members have deemed unacceptable.
Ms Rayner pleaded with Unite to accept a ‘significantly improved offer’ to end the month-long crisis, which has seen rats running through mountains of bin bags.
But Unite members in Birmingham voted overwhelmingly against the council’s ‘totally inadequate’ proposal – meaning strikes which have left 21,000 tons of rubbish piling up on the streets of England’s second city will grind on.
A Unite spokesman said: ‘Unite’s first, second and third priority is workers and their pay and conditions.
The workers, dressed in orange high vis, loaded the waste into the disposal lorries themselves
The Labour-led council was humiliated on Monday when the striking workers rejected their latest pay offer by an overwhelming majority and fresh talks on Wednesday ended without agreement
Unite said the industrial action was triggered by the council’s decision to remove the role of waste recycling and collection officers from its fleets
As well as piles of rubbish bags, flytipping has also been seen across parts of the city
Locals say the rubbish is attracting rodents, including rats, to people’s homes
A large pile of rubbish sits outside a housing estate on Saint Luke’s Road, Birmingham
‘Unite is a Labour Party affiliated trade union, with the last vote by members to continue affiliation taking place in July 2023.
‘It is no surprise, however, that people are questioning Labour’s position because of the situation in Birmingham.
‘We have a Labour council telling the public no bin worker will lose income, while in talks with Unite saying they will lose up to £8,000 – that being a quarter of their wages.
‘The council needs to put in writing what it is saying in public, that no one will lose pay, and the government should be pushing them to do this. Unite will not allow workers to pay the price for bad decisions made by employers.’
The union said the industrial action was triggered by the council’s decision to remove the role of waste recycling and collection officers from its fleets.
They were responsible for safety at the back of a refuse collection lorry, the union said, and were a ‘safety-critical role’.
It warned the move would lead to affected workers losing £8,000 in their salary, as well as cutting off a ‘fair path for pay progression’.
Bankrupt Birmingham City Council – which is being overseen by government commissioners with plans to cut hundreds of jobs and sell off assets to help balance the books – say 170 staff members were affected by their decision to remove waste recycling and collection officers.
The authority said about 130 of these had accepted roles in other parts of the council on the same pay grade, while others have opted to train for more advanced roles.
Only 17 staff members – the council argued – could lose the maximum amount from their salary, which it says is £6,000, not £8,000.
