Birmingham City Council<\/a> spokesperson, said: \u201cThe talks with Unite were productive, but there are still a number of issues to resolve. We are looking forward to continuing with negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\nA Unite spokesperson said: \u201cUnite is continuing to engage in intensive talks with the council on behalf our members in the refuse service.<\/p>\n
“No resolution has yet been reached but Unite has put forward a range of fair and reasonable solutions to bring this dispute to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned about the public health situation in Birmingham.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly am concerned about the public health situation and the poor conditions we\u2019re seeing for people in Birmingham,\u201d he told Times Radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the bin bags are piling up, we see rats and other vermin crawling around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not good for public health. I think this dispute has escalated way out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it is \u201ctotally unacceptable\u201d that the dispute has seen bin lorries blocked from leaving the depot.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI understand industrial disputes happen. I understand people have the right to withdraw their labour. That\u2019s part and parcel of industrial relations in our country.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what is not acceptable is allowing these sorts of unsanitary conditions to occur on people\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m urging Unite to do the right thing, stop blocking the bin lorries, and allow people to get out there and clean the streets for the people of Birmingham who suffered for far too long.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city council declared a major incident on Monday March 31 because of the impact and talks between local government and Unite are continuing in an effort to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n
Local Government Secretary Angela Rayner met council leader John Cotton at the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birmingham City Council said talks with Unite were productive however ‘there are still a number of issues to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[984,12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-5348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-birmingham-city-council","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114306991031950775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348","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=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Bin](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1_JS364824018.jpg\")
Bin bags piled up on Charles Road, Small Heath, during the ongoing refuse collectors strike<\/p>\n