Birmingham residents have been given a stark warning by new council leaders that ending the bin strike will not happen overnight – despite a pre-election ‘deal’ pledge between the union Unite and Labour.
New city council leader Cllr Roger Harmer said his minority coalition administration would not be rushed into a ‘deal’ without first reviewing the current state of affairs and assessing all options on the best way forward.
“I would caution the residents of Birmingham that it will take a little while,” he told BirminghamLive during his first round of official media interviews since being made leader of a new minority coalition made up of Greens, Liberal Democrats and Better Birmingham Independents.
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He was referring back to a press conference prior to last month’s local elections, when former Birmingham Labour leader John Cotton announced an end to the strike was “within sight”, saying a ‘ballpark’ proposal was hammered out between the union and Labour politicians including mayor Richard Parker.
The ‘agreement’ included a promise of compensatory payouts to hundreds of bin workers affected by job cuts and downgrades of up to £16,000 each to end the dispute.
Birmingham City Council leader Roger Harmer
Speaking of the state of affairs, Coun Harmer said: “Labour (and Unite) announced what was a proposal (shorly before the election), it was not a deal…a deal can only be made between the top officers in the council and the union. Top officers were not involved in that process so it can’t be a deal.
“Some elements (of the Labour/union proposal) were interesting and we always welcome any contributions that might help drive us towards it (ending the dispute).
“But one of the things that has dogged resolution of this dispute is people endlessly arguing about who said what and when… As a new administration it’s important for us to draw a line under all those arguments and discussions and go and look at all the facts, take advice, negotiate and come up with a solution.
“I would caution the residents of Birmingham it will take a little while. It took Labour 18 months to get nowhere.
“Clearly we want this done as soon as possible but equally we need to get this done properly so in a few months it doesn’t just break…we have to got to button it down and go through all the due process and it will take a little while.”
He would not be drawn on how long ‘a while’ could be, other than to say it was his ‘top priority.’
But when asked if one option he was considering involved firing striking workers, he said: “That is absolutely not what we’re aiming to do. That would be a sign of failure if we got to that point.”
While the strike endures, the prospect of rapidly introducing new bin collection regimes including weekly food waste and alternating black bin and recycling bin collections also remained distant, he added.
“Our position is that while the service is not reliable, and it is not, then we should not move to fortnightly collections.”
He said this was in part because of continuing missed collections and unreliability which jeopardised the way ahead. He would not countenance people having to wait up to a month for a collection.
“We want to get to a position where services are completely reliable.”
The previous administration had previously agreed to roll out a new weekly food waste service and switch to fortnightly collections from this month onwards.
The strike, which has dragged on now for around 17 months, was initially triggered by a dispute between the council and Unite the union.
Coun Cotton had pledged before the local elections that a Labour administration would push the deal through as a matter of absolute priority if they remained in charge.
The timing of the update was met with scepticism and anger from opposition councillors at the time, with the council’s Tory group leader describing it as a “pathetic attempt to hold on to power before [Labour] disappear into the abyss”.
Former council leader Cllr John Cotton announcing the ‘ballpark deal’ just before the local election -Credit:Nick Wilkinson/Birmingham Live
Since then Unite had warned the “deal to end the bin strikes struck by the old political leadership hangs in the balance” while council officers denied there had ever been a deal.
A council spokesperson said: “ Birmingham City Council were not party to discussions held between Unite and Labour in the run-up to local elections. Therefore, no ‘deal’ exists to ‘hang in the balance’…the statement made in the run-up to the elections by the then-leader of the Labour group was made in a political capacity and not as the leader of the council.”