{"id":554005,"date":"2026-04-27T22:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/554005\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:15:08","slug":"birmingham-council-leader-says-end-of-citys-bin-strike-within-sight-birmingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/554005\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham council leader says end of city\u2019s bin strike \u2018within sight\u2019 | Birmingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

The end of the year-long Birmingham<\/a> bin strike is now \u201cwithin sight\u201d, the city council leader has said after committing to an improved offer for refuse workers.<\/p>\n

On Monday, John Cotton, the Labour leader of Birmingham city council, said a new, improved offer could be made to workers that he hoped would \u201cend the strike once and for all\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter months of frustration and delay, for the first time in over 12 months, a negotiated settlement to end the bin strike is now within sight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bin workers in Birmingham began striking in January 2025, and stopped working completely in March that year, in a dispute over proposed pay cuts and role changes. It led to the council declaring a major incident when 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish built up across the city.<\/p>\n

Sharon Graham, Unite\u2019s general secretary, said: \u201cThe move made today by the leader of the council is a vindication of the bin workers\u2019 struggle for a decent deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI salute the fortitude of my members who have needlessly been forced to endure months of attacks and hardship to get us to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham blamed the \u201cvindictive interference\u201d of the government commissioners who were sent to run the council after it in effect went bankrupt in 2023<\/a> for blocking the deal to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir lack of both experience and industrial relations competence has been a major factor in this dispute, and their malevolent game-playing has been an absolute disgrace,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Unite said the full details of the deal would remain confidential until the council submits a detailed offer, and would need to be voted on by bin workers.<\/p>\n

The union said the broad outline of the deal would mean workers get a two-month cushion from any salary reduction resulting from a job evaluation process, and agency workers who had worked for more than 12 months would be offered permanent employment.<\/p>\n

It also said disciplinary issues would be quashed, gross misconduct issues reviewed, and legal action on both sides would end.<\/p>\n

The strike \u2013 one of the biggest industrial disputes in recent years<\/a> \u2013 stemmed from a council decision to scrap the role of waste recycling and collection officer, claiming it did not exist in other areas and that it could make the authority liable to equal pay claims.<\/p>\n

Striking workers disputed this, and Unite said it would cost some of its members \u00a38,000 a year \u2013 a figure the council has disputed.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s announcement on Monday comes a week before local elections that could see a dramatic political shake-up in the Labour-run city.<\/p>\n

Robert Alden, the leader of Birmingham Conservatives, said council leaders \u201cwant residents to believe they have a deal 10 days before an election that is set to see them booted out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLabour are committing to yet another equal pay bill and running off to leave everyone else to pay for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Birmingham city council reached an agreement to settle historical equal pay claims that left the authority with liabilities estimated at \u00a3760m<\/a> that in effect pushed it into bankruptcy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The end of the year-long Birmingham bin strike is now \u201cwithin sight\u201d, the city council leader has said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-554005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}