A union boss spearheading the Birmingham bin strike has blasted the city council and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner for failing to ‘offer her lads a good deal’.
Unite regional secretary Annmarie Kilcline, 61, lives in a clean and litter-free leafy street 50 miles away from Britain’s rat-infested second city, where mountains of rotting waste are piled high six weeks into the dispute with binmen.
Her intervention comes after the Mail revealed none of the Unite leaders behind the industrial action actually live in Birmingham, sparking anger from residents who say they are being forced to ‘live like animals’ while bosses remain unscathed.
Ms Kilcline, speaking exclusively from her £600,000 home in the Nottinghamshire suburb of Beeston, accepted that the strike was having a ‘massive effect’ on residents, but claimed it was ‘just as bad’ for the striking workers.
She spoke out after Ms Rayner visited the West Midlands city last week and called on the union to accept a ’significantly improved’ deal for workers.
The union officer said: ’The lads rejected the latest offer by a 98 per cent majority. It was not a good deal.
‘I need the council and the Government to get around that table to make a sensible offer to re-start the bin collections.
’Our lads are going to be losing £8,000 from their salaries because of the inefficient way Birmingham City Council, which is bankrupt, has handled things.
‘Our members are not wealthy and this will have a massive effect in them.’
Unite regional secretary Annmarie Kilcline, 61, has called on Birmingham City Council and the Government to offer striking binmen a better deal
She lives on a leafy road in Nottinghamshire which is conspicuously free of any discarded binbags
But in Birmingham, residents lives have been made miserable by the tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish dumped on the street
Ms Kilcline suggested the rubbish collection that had taken place in the city was more focused on ‘affluent’ areas like Sutton Coldfield.
‘Refuse collections are still going out in certain areas to benefit some,’ she added.
Unite’s West Midlands regional secretary was speaking just days after her husband Mark Labbett was pictured dutifully putting out their black wheelie bin.
She said: ‘I hope there can be a resolution soon. I want that resolution and it has to be maintained for the future.’
The war of words came as a senior Birmingham councillor sparked a row with Unite -Labour’s biggest union backer – after saying binmen don’t deserve more pay.
Leaked messages seen by The Telegraph show that Rob Pocock, a member of the council’s cabinet, complained that refuse workers were demanding pay the ‘job simply does not merit’.
The Mail revealed this week that Union bosses behind strikes which have left the streets of Birmingham piled high with rotting waste are directing the action from outside of the city – in leafy suburbs with regular bin collections.
Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, has been the most prominent voice of the strikes, which are now in their sixth week.
Announcing the result of Monday’s ballot – which was rejected by workers – the left-wing firebrand slammed the Labour government for ‘peddling untruths’ ‘and focusing on winning a media war’.
But despite her central role in the dispute, she lives some 130 miles away from Birmingham in west London – and has been accused of sidelining local union figures in the West Midlands.
The 56-year-old is said to have split opinion in the union movement with her hardline approach to the strike, with reports it could have been resolved earlier this year if it was not for the influence of ‘national figures’.
Unite leader Sharon Graham, pictured at a protest in 2024, lives in West London but has not let this stop her taking a central role in the strike
Onay Kasab, Unite National leader, warned this week that the strikes could spread nationally
But Mr Kasab’s bins are emptied regularly at his home in London
Even Unite’s regional officer Zoe Mayou doesn’t live in Birmingham, but in Nuneaton around 30 miles away
Ms Mayou sought to play down Birmingham’s vermin problem when she spoke to the Mail on her doorstep
Clare Keogh, Unite’s local government spokeswoman, lists her home as Kingston upon Thames – some 130 miles from Birmingham – and where bins and recycling are collected fortnightly and food waste is removed once a week.
Unite national lead Onay Kasab, 58, who yesterday warned the strikes crippling Birmingham could spread around the country, lives in a three-bedroom semi-detached house on a tidy tree-lined avenue in Welling in Kent – 150 miles away from Birmingham.
His recycling and household waste bins are collected every fortnight on a Tuesday. As is his brown bin for garden waste.
Asked about the fact that none of the main Unite organisers live in the city, Mr Kasab said: ‘Where I live, not so long ago, there was a dispute involving refuse workers and my bins didn’t get emptied.
‘It didn’t mean that I stopped supporting those refuse workers.’
Zoe Mayou is Unite’s regional officer for the West Midlands who has warned in media interviews that the strike could go on for months – but even she doesn’t live in Birmingham.
Instead, the union official owns a neat new build red brick semi detached house in Nuneaton, Warwickshire – 30 miles from the city.
Asked why Birmingham should have rats the size of cats when she lives on a nice clean street, she sought to play down the city’s vermin problem.
Speaking on her doorstep, she said: ‘There have always been rats, don’t they say you’re always only six feet away from a rat?’
Specialist machinery has been used to help clear the piles of waste from the streets of Birmingham, including today on Poplar Road in the Balsall Heath area
The problem with fly-tipped waste has become so extreme it has led to an explosion in the vermin population of the city
Birmingham resident Muhammed Amin, 52, said he was annoyed his area was being ruined while the union leaders were unaffected.
Mr Amin said: ‘They should endure a week here, amongst this rubbish. We’ve got people with rats in their homes. Rubbish piled up outside their homes.
‘But these people in Nottingham and London don’t see this. They’re don’t smell it, why do we want to keep this going. Their bins are collected normally, why can’t ours. It’s a disgrace. We live like animals.’
Engineer Fyke Rehman, 55, said: ‘The leaders aren’t seeing this are they. The union leaders aren’t part of this, they don’t see this. They’re unaffected.’
Care worker Farah, 39, says her children are too scared to play outside due to the rats.
‘I’ve just paid my council tax and what’s the point. It’s gone up, too,’ she added.
On Tuesday, Labour-run Birmingham city council urged Unite once again to reconsider and put a stop to the strikes, now in their sixth week.
Craig Cooper said: ‘My message to Unite is that we have put a very, very fair offer on the table. I urge Unite to come to the table as swiftly as possible and for us to resolve this, and return the services to where they should be, and to do the transformation that we aspire to deliver.’
Asked about the fact leaders live outside of the city, a Unite spokesman said: ‘Unite makes no apologies for defending our members from these horrific attacks on their pay. Some of these low paid workers face losing up to a quarter of their wages – that’s the real story here.’
