Last year, Birmingham was overflowing with litter. Garbage bags piled high, the overflowing contents spilling onto the wet streets. rats, is reported to be “The size of cats” roam the streets. Local Conservative members dressed like mice in answer for lack of council action. of New York Times declared the city the “garbage” capital of Britain.
Much of the political discussion can feel sidelined by the day-to-day concerns of voters: bin collections, potholes and planning, operating in a never-ending “permacrisis” routine. However, the values and aspirations that Britain is fighting for – a fair wage, a decent life and civil debate – can be found in these local disputes. Oil price shocks affect everyone. But voters are more motivated by the specifics of their lives. Birmingham is a once mighty industrial city which continues to prove that all politics is ultimately local.
The dispute began over the council’s decision in early January 2025 to abolish the role of recycling and waste collection officer – a senior position for any bin team that Unite, the union representing waste workers, claims is vital to the safety of its workers. The union estimated that removing the role would do LEAD for around 150 workers losing up to £8,000 a year each. (The council disputed that figure initially, saying the maximum loss would be just over £6,000 and would affect just 17 workers, with six months’ pay protected.)
In response to the removal of the position, about 350 boiler workers planned 12 departures in four months last January. Two months later, it became an indefinite general strike. And the union’s demands also widened: Unite is demanding long-term guaranteed pay for lorry drivers, warning that under the council’s job re-evaluation process, bin lorry drivers, classified as a Class 4 job, were on the line. to crash to a grade 3, which would mean a pay cut of £6,000-8,000. Some drivers were reported be at risk of mandatory redundancy.
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Tensions at Redfern Road Depot, in Tyseley, east Birmingham, flared last July after strikers violated a Supreme Court ruling, issued in May, blocking bin trucks from setting up and workers “walking slowly” past the trucks as they began their rounds. This week, the Supreme Court BOOKED Join to pay £435,000 – £265,000 in fines to the government and £170,000 in costs to Birmingham City Council – over these breaches. Unite says it had a “genuine misunderstanding” as it believed the order only applied to protests near depots.
I visited Redfern Road Depot in early March, on the anniversary of the strike. Protesters were waving red flags reading “I support the Brum bin strikers” alongside a grinning Oscar the Grouch, his fist punching the air in solidarity. Two men were working together to blow up a giant rat, to cheers from the strikers. I didn’t see any rats, not even empty trash bags, in the clean city center. The whole mess had been pushed to the outskirts of the city. At the resorts, I saw mattresses, old shopping carts, an empty pineapple.
Workers on the box line were angry with the council. Wendy Yarnold had worked as a waste collector for almost ten years. She rented a three-bedroom house from the council – the same council she was on strike against. “My rent is going up from £600 to £650,” she said. “That’s before bills and food. I can’t afford groceries. And now with the rent going up, I’m at risk of losing my house.”
Striking workers receive £70 a day from the Unite strike fund, leaving many struggling to stay afloat. I asked Yarnold why she didn’t find another job in the meantime, and she laughed. “What jobs are there? I apply for five jobs a day on Indeed. I hear nothing.” Christmas was extremely difficult. She had to tell her three sons that she couldn’t wait for them. “My back feels against the wall.”
Kate joined the strike in December 2025. She worked as agency staff for a recruitment firm – Job and Talent – hired by Birmingham City Council to replace striking bin workers. Unite has accused the council of trying to “implode”. doubling of expenses in the agency’s staff since the strike began. Workers had voted to join Unite’s initial strike, Unite said, after them “shows” were publicly listed in the league table that was posted on the wall of their staff room at the Smithfield warehouse. The union also alleged that managers had threatened agency workers with their lives blacklisted and banned from work if they refuse to cross the box lines.
According to Kate, she lost her job with the agency when “they said via text that my services were no longer required.” She has heard that the reason was because she had posed for a photo with full-figured actresses. “Apparently, I went out and posed for a picture with them. I was dancing with them. That’s not true. What’s more concerning is the agency trying to make sure you don’t have a vacation.”
When asked about this by New statesmanLabor and Talent referred to a previously published statement. The company said it had “no record or documentation” relating to Kate’s case and that it did not terminate duties on the basis of union membership or industrial action. Assignment decisions, he said, were based on “operational requirements and worker performance.” It added that it took the welfare and working conditions of its workers “very seriously, including ensuring adequate holidays”. Kate lives with her father, who also used to be a waste collector before he retired. “I want to leave and buy a house,” she said. “But I can’t. What about those strikers without family support?”
“I guess I’ll have to sell my car,” said a man called Dave, who was wearing a Birmingham City Football Club beanie. “I have a Honda Civic. It’s nothing crazy, just a normal car. Running – fuel, insurance, everything – is hard when you can’t maintain it. I’m just to keep a roof over my head. I never expected this in my working life. I have sleepless nights about it all.” All the strikers were determined to fight against the council. In particular, many strikers mentioned David Carpenter, a waste worker at neighboring Coventry City Council, who died from INJURY in 2023 after being raised in a bin truck while in collections. Over a scratchy sound system, a union representative told the crowd: “I don’t know what color your rosette is… There’s an easy solution. It starts with (the council) walking through the door.”
However, with local elections just six weeks away, a capitulation by the Labour-led council looks unlikely. That might be the point. The strikers’ political capital has run out and Unite’s patience with Labor seems to be running out too. The union announced on the anniversary of the bin strike that it would cut membership fees party by 40 per cent, a move that could cost Labor up to £580,000. The calculation seems to be that squeezing Labor into the center is Unite’s only remaining leverage: if the party feels financial pain, it can finally pressure the council to settle.
Many of the strikers were particularly angry at the mismanagement of the council, which passed the first balanced budget to increase council tax to the standard 4.99 per cent. This follows a much larger rise of 17.5 per cent over the previous two financial years. The council has been beset by financial problems, such as a projected £760m bill for equal obligations and a wrong release of the IT system which has cost the council up to £100 million. The strikers believe that all this money lost by the council could have been better used to resolve the real issues: wages and conditions with their workers.
They were particularly angry with Councilor Majid Mahmood, cabinet member for environment and transport. Local media reported that Mahmood had been filmed removal of posters supporting the striking workers of Birmingham binane. He claimed he did it because “residents complain” about the banners. In a previous bin strike, in 2019, he was photographed in support of the workers. At that time he said he “firmly believed (they) had been discriminated against”. Now, he says it is “extremely frustrating” that the strike has not been resolved. “Get back to work, I want you to be a part of this new, improved service,” he said in a STATEMENT.
One councilor said this was not good enough. Sam Forsyth, a former Labor councilor now an independent who represents Quinton, in south-west Birmingham, said it was “absolutely ridiculous” that the council could not get around the bargaining table with the strikers. It is not clear how many Labor councilors are in favor of the strike – the council’s press office has asked councilors not to speak to the media about the strikes. Thirty-five MPs – including Tahir Ali, who represents Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley – have CALLED on Keir Starmer to take action to end it.
Birmingham Labor face what could be the fight of their lives in May’s local elections. Now the national party was so alarmed by the dysfunction of the regional group that it has deselect a dozen advisers. Polls in the region suggest Labor will remain the largest partybut no longer commands a majority. Once again, it is impossible not to read that collapse in a national context. Voters, regardless of rosette color, are broken and angry. They are angry here in the West Midlands about the bin crisis, and across the country, at the failure to rescue the cost of living crisis that emerged after 2022 but probably started in 2008.
In the Birmingham constituency of Yardley, a focus group of eight former Labor voters found themselves broken between Reform and the Greens. It’s easy to dismiss them as populist bullies on both sides of the political spectrum, but with global instability gnawing at their minds and still recovering from Brexit fever and the pandemic, it’s hard not to sympathize with them when they say: “We don’t have to live, but we have to survive somehow.”
For Dave, he will be back on the doll line tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. “I just want this to be over,” he says. “I want to go back to work. I want to provide for my family.” He stops. “But not like this.”
Some names have been changed
(Further reading: How Covid fears shaped the meningitis response)
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