{"id":279202,"date":"2025-07-21T05:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/279202\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T05:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:51:12","slug":"union-attacks-outrageous-treatment-of-birmingham-bin-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/279202\/","title":{"rendered":"Union attacks &#8216;outrageous&#8217; treatment of Birmingham bin workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The city council has insisted the changes it is trying to implement would improve the waste and recycling service for residents, with the city&#8217;s recycling rates historically among the worst in the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It added that affected workers had been offered other jobs, voluntary redundancy or pay protection for six months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier this month, the BBC was informed talks to resolve the dispute <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/crk6rz4lg20o\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">had broken down<\/a> completely and some bin lorry drivers were at risk of compulsory redundancy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The union had previously suggested Grade 4 drivers could see their pay drop from \u00a340,000 to \u00a332,000  under council plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Conciliation service Acas had been mediating in the negotiations since May but the local authority walked away from those.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the time, council leader John Cotton said it had &#8220;reached the absolute limit&#8221; of what it could offer in talks with the union.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unite&#8217;s general secretary Sharon Graham claimed the council had resorted to a &#8220;fire and rehire&#8221; strategy, which she said would not work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city council has insisted the changes it is trying to implement would improve the waste and recycling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-279202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}