In the lead-up to what was described as a \u201cmegapicket\u201d last Friday\u2014at Lifford Lane, one of the three yards for striking Birmingham council bin workers\u2014its pseudo-left organisers proclaimed a mass event marking the return of trade union struggle.<\/p>\n
The Strike Map group wrote in the Stalinist Morning Star that \u201ca mass demonstration of solidarity\u201d would involve \u201cthousands of trade unionists from across the country\u201d joining \u201cthe picket lines in Birmingham.\u201d <\/p>\n
A list of national and local trade union backers was breathlessly hailed including Aslef, BFAWU, Birmingham National Education Union, Birmingham Trades Union Congress, Birmingham UCU, Birmingham Unite Community, Birmingham Unison, CWU West Midlands, Equity, Fire Brigades Union, PCS, TSSA. Other backers listed were the Socialist Party\u2019s National Network of Shop Stewards (NSSN) vehicle and Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s Peace and Justice Project. <\/p>\n
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) wrote that the rally would turn the tide against Labour Party-run Birmingham City Council\u2019s (BCC) plan to slash workers\u2019 pay and conditions and \u201cbe a show of strength against the strike-breaking operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, estimates of the actual turnout ranged from between 200-400. Delegations of workers\u2014including, firefighters and striking National Health Service workers from Gloucestershire\u2014were the exception. The majority of participants were affiliated to one or another pseudo-left group. <\/p>\n
The megapicket in Birmingham<\/p>\n
For them, this performative \u201csolidarity\u201d aimed at providing a cover for the trade union bureaucracy. <\/p>\n
Much was made in speeches and subsequent reports of the fact that the picket had forced the council to close the depot for the day. But this was a minor recalibration in BCC\u2019s strikebreaking operation, which went ahead uninterrupted at the two other yards. The council announced bin collections from Lifford Lane depot would take place on the weekend instead.<\/p>\n
The next day, BCC boasted, \u201cAll available waste wagons have been deployed from our 3 depots citywide this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keynote speakers were Daniel Kebede, National Education Union general secretary; Mick Whelan, leader of the train driver\u2019s union Aslef; Steve Wright, the newly elected general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU); and Unite union national lead officer Onay Kasab. <\/p>\n
Whelan claimed the Aslef leadership had won the \u201clongest rail strike in history\u201d in 2024. In fact, two years of strikes ended in a sellout deal with the rail firms, backed by the Starmer government, agreeing a pay deal of just over 14 percent spread over three years\u2014after train drivers had lost an average of around \u00a34,900 in pay during strike days.<\/p>\n
Whelan said he brought solidarity as, \u201cYou stood by us when they couldn\u2019t beat us. And they tried to bring in laws for Minimum Service Levels and we defeated the Tories on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, the Tories didn\u2019t need to reach for the anti-strike laws on the books because they were able to rely on the union bureaucracies closing down strike after strike based on rock-bottom pay deals. <\/p>\n Today Birmingham council, backed by the Starmer Labour government elected with the support of all the major trade union leaders, is enforcing a brutal strikebreaking operation including the use of agency workers as scabs, enforced by police and security squads manning barricades at depots to prevent any effective picketing.<\/p>\n FBU leader Wright trumpeted that his union had rejected a call from the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Birmingham, Roger Harmer, to break the strike. But he could say nothing of any mobilisation of his own members in industrial action to defeat the council\u2019s scabbing operation, breaking the anti-strike laws banning secondary action. Instead he portrayed the Birmingham Labourites and Starmer\u2019s cabinet in Downing Street as open to a settlement defending the pay of bin workers. <\/p>\n Wright\u2019s message to BCC was \u201crespect your workers, the essential workers. Get round the table and make a deal and resolve this.\u201d This is of a council which, before Unite entered into further talks at the conciliation service ACAS on May 1, announced that it would not only cut the pay of loaders but that of drivers, by up to \u00a38,000. <\/p>\n As \u201ca union that is affiliated to the Labour Party right now,\u201d Wright\u2019s message was that the government \u201ccan get off the fence and they can intervene.\u201d Every refuse worker in Birmingham knows that Starmer and company are not \u201con the fence\u201d but are openly endorsing BCC\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n No mention of the ACAS talks, or the attack on drivers, was made by Unite official Kasab, a supporter of the Socialist Party. Declaring that Birmingham council was \u00a33 billion in debt to the government and paying \u00a3250 million a year in interest on it, he stated instead, \u201cAny money adviser will tell you the same, restructure the debt<\/a>\u2026 a solution exists.\u201d<\/p>\n Kasab reeled off his usual claims that the bins strike was close to victory, as was supposedly invariably the case under the leadership of General Secretary Sharon Graham. \u201cI make no apology again for pointing out the fact that our union since August, 2021 has been involved in over 1,500 disputes, winning at least 85 percent of those.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the disputes he alluded to have ended in deals which never make up for the pay workers have lost. Many end in outright defeat, as was the case of the Coventry bin workers in 2022. <\/p>\n Another Unite official, Pete Randall, who played a key role in the sellout of the Coventry bin workers in 2022, <\/a>had the gall to proclaim that as a victory. <\/p>\nMick Whelan speaking at the “megapicket” in Birmingham
<\/a><\/p>\n
FBU leader Steve Wright speaking at the megapicket<\/p>\n
Unite official Onay Kasab addressing the megapicket<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n