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The government is sitting on its hands over the Birmingham bin strike as negotiations in the dispute descend into farce, a union boss says.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has told Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner the government can no longer say it is “nothing to do with us. We can’t get involved”.
In a letter to Rayner, Graham also claims “false narratives” have been used in government statements on the dispute that has left more than 17,000 tonnes of waste on city streets.
Birmingham City Council said it was “grateful for the government’s support”, while the government said the dispute should remain “locally led” while calling for “an immediate agreement”.
Graham told Rayner in her letter: “Every attempt being made to solve the dispute by Unite negotiators in the room, is being met with ‘a computer says no’ answer, Unite has claimed a planned restructuring of Birmingham’s refuse service would see 50 workers lose £8,000 a year and about 20 lose £2,000 per annum.
However, the local authority rejects that and says under its pay restructuring plan a total of only 17 workers would face up to a £6,000 loss per year. Councillors have added that under other deals offered, no worker needed “to lose a penny”.
Let me be very clear that the pay of these workers is being cut by a Labour council under your watch. That is a fact that can’t be avoided,” Graham wrote.
The current escalation increasingly looks like a declaration of war on these workers.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, local government minister Jim McMahon had relied on “false narratives” around the proposals and demonstrated a lack of understanding about the dispute, Graham writes in her letter.
We need to have an emergency meeting with the leader of the council, regarding debt restructuring and immediately investigate the role of the commissioner in the dispute,” she said.
Without addressing these problems on a broader scale, Graham concluded “we are looking at a full-blown crisis in local government.”
A government spokesperson said: “It is right that this continues to be a locally led response, as is usual in the case of council-run services.
But we are monitoring the situation closely and will not hesitate to act should the council require additional support.”
The city council said the need to “modernise the waste service and eliminate any future equal pay risk” was unrelated to the debt issues it has.
“A fair and reasonable offer remains on the table which would bring this dispute to an end,” a spokesperson added.
Unite and the city council are in disagreement over how much money refuse workers face under pay restructuring proposals and how many of them would be affected.
The proposal has been on the table since December, but talks have stalled, and the strike continues, with waste piling up in the city.
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