The head of Unite has called on ministers to “get the decision-makers in a room” over the Birmingham bin strike after Downing Street told the union to start “negotiating in good faith”.
General secretary Sharon Graham accused the Government of “blaming bin workers in a dispute not of their making”.
Earlier on Friday, Number 10 told Unite to “drop their opposition” to the pay changes at the heart of the dispute with Birmingham council that has seen tonnes of rubbish piling up on the city’s streets.
Members of the union in Birmingham launched a walkout last month in a dispute over pay and jobs, which is causing misery for residents who say they face a public health crisis.
If @GOVUK were really concerned about the residents of #Birmingham they would get the decision makers in a room of which they are clearly one, to ensure that Unite’s solutions on the table were adopted.
— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) April 4, 2025
Yet again workers and communities pay the price for government inaction. 🔚
Responding to Downing Street’s remarks, Ms Graham said Unite officials have “been in negotiations in good faith for weeks” and that the Government needs to “wake up and smell the coffee that they are part of this dispute”.
In a thread on X on Friday afternoon, she added: “If [the Government] were really concerned about the residents of Birmingham they would get the decision-makers in a room, of which they are clearly one, to ensure that Unite’s solutions on the table were adopted.”
The council declared a major incident earlier this week in a bid to increase collections of bin sacks amid a huge pile-up of waste on the streets
In their robust intervention on Friday, Number 10 said police have installed barriers at the picket line to prevent waste lorries being “recklessly blocked” as workers strike.
Asked about the situation on Friday, a Number 10 spokesman said: “Unite need to focus on negotiating in good faith, drop their opposition to changes needed to resolve long-standing equal pay issues, and get round the table with the council to bring this strike to an end.”
He added that lorries were now making their way out of the depot.
Local government minister Jim McMahon met council chiefs on Thursday in an effort to end the strike that has seen refuse workers stage a complete walkout for almost a month.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told ITV that the Government is “very clear that this dispute must come to an end”, adding that it is “a local dispute and the local authority are dealing with it”.
She told the channel: “We’ve been very clear that it’s not acceptable to have thousands of tons of waste on the streets, and we want to see that cleared up.
“That was my message as Secretary of State to the local council: that that has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. We cannot have thousands of tons of waste on the streets. It’s not acceptable.”
Ms Graham previously wrote to Ms Rayner urging an intervention and saying the Government could no longer “sit on its hands”.
The union leader said talks with the council were a “charade” because officials had to defer to commissioners who were called in by the previous Conservative government to run the authority’s finances.
Meanwhile, the Tories have criticised ministers over the dispute, pointing to donations from Unite to Labour candidates, now MPs, at last year’s general election and claiming the Government has shown a “reluctance” to call the union out.
