Bin workers in Birmingham have been on strike since March 11th. When the Labour council in that city attacked bin workers’ pay and conditions, walkouts started in January, leading on to an all-out strike from March 11th.

This is an important strike that must be supported with solidarity action from other workers.

Workers are in direct confrontation with a Labour council that wants savage cuts that will result in a pay cut of £8,000 a year. In addition, lorry drivers are being downgraded by this vicious anti-working class council. Hundreds of bin workers are striking, and are blocking bin lorries run down by scab outfits paid by the council.

Thanks to their own financial mismanagement and austerity measures imposed by both Tory and Labour governments, Birmingham council are now trying to get out on the hole they have dug by attacking the workers they employ.

The council has paid scabs to break the strike. Police have attacked picket lines and army officers have been employed to help in the strike-breaking operation. Workers responded to the breaking up of picket lines by mounting a mass picket on 9th May, involving hundreds of people. As a result, the depot at Lifford Lane was shut down.

The following Monday, workers blocked bin lorries leaving the Atlas depot in Tyseley and Lifford Lane. The mass action has encouraged workers to take independent action outside the control of the Unite union bureaucracy.

The Labour council has used Section 14 of the Public Order Act to attack pickets. However, the determination of the bin workers has increased. The Unite bureaucracy could not think beyond a legal challenge, when the police began breaking up picket lines. It was down to workers themselves organising mass action that has led to increasing confidence.

The council attempted to enlist firefighters to clear rubbish. However, firefighters have responded with a categorical rejection of such action.

The bin strike has become a beacon for resistance to austerity. But now we need to up the ante, with further mass pickets and a mass national demonstration in Birmingham.

The leader of Birmingham council, John Cotton, has not been at any of the negotiations with bin workers. As to the managing director of the council, Joanne Roney, she spent the first week of the strike in Cannes in southern France at a MIPIM real estate conference, attempting to attract property developers to Birmingham. This was just after she had declared the strike as a major incident! Meanwhile meetings with the bin workers have been scheduled by the council to only one a week.

The Labour Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, has said that the strike should be suspended, and that workers should accept a “fair” offer. A cut of £8,000?

The bin workers strike is a direct challenge to this rotten Labour government. Support it.