Keir Starmer‘s desperate plea to end the Birmingham bin strike crisis was humiliatingly dismissed by the union today.
Amid mounting fury at the Labour-run council over the chaos, with rubbish piling up and rats running riot on the city’s streets, No10 urged Unite to ‘get round the table’ and negotiate ‘in good faith’.
A spokesman for the PM – said to have hand-picked local authority leader John Cotton – said the union must ‘drop their opposition’ to pay changes at the heart of a dispute.
But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham shot back that Sir Keir was ‘blaming’ workers and had to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. She suggested he should step in to take part in talks.
The backlash came after Downing Street said police have installed barriers at the picket line to prevent waste lorries being ‘recklessly blocked’.
Union members in Birmingham launched a walkout last month in a dispute over pay and jobs, which is causing misery for residents who say they face a public health crisis.
The council declared a major incident earlier this week in a bid to increase collections of bin sacks amid a huge pile-up of waste on the streets.
Keir Starmer ‘s desperate plea to end the Birmingham bin strike crisis was humiliatingly dismissed by the union today
Amid mounting fury at the Labour-run council over the chaos, with rubbish piling up and rats running riot on the city’s streets, No10 urged Unite to ‘get round the table’ and negotiate ‘in good faith’
The council declared a major incident earlier this week in a bid to increase collections of bin sacks amid a huge pile-up of waste on the streets
Local government minister Jim McMahon met council chiefs yesterday in an effort to end the strike that has seen refuse workers stage a complete walkout for almost a month.
The No10 spokesman said: ‘Following that meeting, police have installed barriers at the picket line to prevent waste lorries being recklessly blocked from leaving the depots this morning to start dealing with the backlog.
‘Unite need to focus on negotiating in good faith, drop their opposition to changes needed to resolve long-standing equal pay issues, and get round the table with the council to bring this strike to an end.’
He added that lorries were now making their way out of the depot.
Ms Graham said: ‘It is not surprising that many workers in Britian question the Labour government’s commitment to working people, when it issues a statement clearly blaming bin workers in a dispute not of their making.
‘The bottom line about this dispute is that these workers, woke up one morning to be told they would be taking up to an £8,000 pay cut. They are being made to pay the price for austerity and bad decisions by Birmingham City Council.’
Ms Graham said Unite had already agreed ‘major changes’.
‘Unite’s team of decision makers has been in negotiations in good faith for weeks. It is the leader of the council who is missing in action and who has not been in any of the talks,’ she said.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham shot back that Sir Keir was ‘blaming’ workers and had to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’
‘The government is going to have to wake up and smell the coffee that they are part of this dispute, as the commissioners report directly to them and they own the £3.9billion debt of the council.
‘If the government were really concerned about the residents of Birmingham they would get the decision makers in a room of which they are clearly one, to ensure that Unite’s solutions on the table were adopted.’
The Tories have criticised ministers over the dispute, pointing to donations from Unite to Labour candidates at last year’s general election and claiming the Government had since shown a ‘reluctance’ to call the union out.
