City council declares major incident in Birmingham over bin strikes

Birmingham City Council has declared a major incident over the bin strike and said that picket lines blocking its depots are preventing waste vehicles from collecting rubbish.

The council says it has a contingency plan using their limited resources to collect from all properties in the city once a week, but actions on the picket line have prevented them from doing this.

The council says daily blocking of their depots by pickets has meant that they cannot get their vehicles out to collect waste from residents. They say often, they can only get one vehicle out per hour.

This has meant that to date around 17,000 tonnes of waste remains uncollected across the city.

This has led to rising concerns of risks to public health and damage to the environment.

The council says it is already working to an emergency plan; declaring a major incident will initially allow the council to:

Quickly increase the availability of street cleansing and fly-tip removal with an additional 35 vehicles and crews around the city.

Work with partners to better manage the risks the city is facing, including health and fire risks and allow for increased data and intelligence sharing. Initially this will be focussed upon support to allow vehicles to safely exists and enter depots on time.

Allow the council to explore what further support is available from neighbouring authorities and government to assist in managing the situation.

Councillor John Cotton, leader of Birmingham City Council, said: "It's regrettable that we have had to take this step, but we cannot tolerate a situation that is causing harm and distress to communities across Birmingham.

"I respect the right to strike and protest, however actions on the picket line must be lawful and sadly the behaviour of some now means we are seeing a significant impact on residents and the city's environment.

“Unless we declare a major incident and deploy the waste service’s contingency plan, then we would be unable to clear the backlog of waste on the streets or improve the frequency of collections.

“I want to thank residents for their continued patience under difficult circumstances and the community groups who have been working hard within their communities to help with clear-up.

“I would reiterate that we have made a fair and reasonable offer to our workers which means none of them have to lose any money and I would urge Unite to reconsider their position.”

The council usually deploys around 200 vehicles over 8-hour daily shifts. Their contingency allows 90 vehicles per day but because of pickets blocking depots they are deployed much later and therefore for shorter working periods.

Normally they say they would make well over 500,000 collections per week. The strike contingency would mean 360,000 but due to the blockade of depots they are doing far below this.

The waste collection rate against the reduced service plan (one single collection per property / week) has declined from 87% in the week of 10th March, to 64% in the week of 17th March, to 17% in the week of 24th March.

The daily rate of accumulation of uncollected waste in the city has increased from 483 tonnes per day in the week of 10th March, to 655 tonnes per day in the week of 17th March, to almost 900 tonnes per day in the week of 24th March.

The council now estimate there are now over 17,000 tons of uncollected rubbish in the city.

Talks between the city council and Unite union resumed this morning as the walkout enters its 4th week.

In a statement - Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: “The case for a new grade three role that stops the brutal pay cuts and allows fair pay progression for grade two staff, most of who earn little more than the minimum wage, is affordable and irrefutable.

“The commissioner-controlled council can do this but is telling the public it can’t because it doesn’t want to admit it is prepared to cause chaos for residents for the sake of its race-to-the-bottom agency plans.

“This isn’t about equal wages for other workers – it’s about driving down pay and conditions for all Birmingham council staff, starting with the refuse service.”

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