STRIKING Birmingham bin workers have overwhelmingly rejected, by 97%, the council’s ‘totally inadequate’ offer, with hundreds of members of the Unite union voting against the deal, which still includes substantial pay cuts for workers, including pay cuts for 200 drivers.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘For weeks, these workers have faced attacks from government and their employer pushing the lie that only a handful of workers are affected by the council’s plans to cut pay by up to £8,000.
‘Instead of peddling untruths about these low paid workers and focusing on winning a media war, the government should have taken the time to check facts and used its office to bring the council to the table in a meaningful way.
‘The rejection of the offer is no surprise as these workers simply cannot afford to take pay cuts of this magnitude to pay the price for bad decision after bad decision.
‘From the start, the council has constantly moved the goalposts for these workers, prolonging the strikes in the process. First it was equal pay, then it was about improving the waste service, then cost cutting. The list goes on.
‘Unite has set out simple and reasonable steps to the council to resolve these issues. It is important to remember that this dispute is not about a pay rise it is about preventing serious pay cuts.
‘The government must now call a meeting with the stakeholders to ensure these steps are taken to bring the strike to an end.
‘The government must now also urgently consider Unite’s proposal for debt restructure at Birmingham City Council and other local authorities. Workers and communities cannot continue to pay the price.’
Unite National Lead Officer Onay Kasab said: ‘Our members have rejected this offer because they could see through what this so-called proposal meant. It nails the lie. This is not simply about 17 workers, it’s about far more workers. We have hundreds of drivers impacted by this as well.
‘It really is now time for negative briefings to stop, for facts to be put out there. This is about huge pay cuts for hundreds of people.
‘A 97% result is absolutely huge. What it means is that our members have been able to see exactly what this means. They’ve been able to see through the lies. The actual proposal itself is very flimsy.
‘Now, over the last few days we’ve had government ministers, MPs, demanding that we put this to our members. Despite it being inadequate, we did. That’s exactly what we did. And they saw exactly how inadequate it was.
‘It fails to deal with the fact that people will suffer a pay loss. Now we’ve had MPs, council leaders, deputy prime ministers, claiming that there will not be a pay loss. It’s absolute nonsense. It’s actually written into this proposal that there will be a pay loss. Our members were able to see through that.
‘We have MPs who have given themselves a 2% pay increase, they have subsidised lunches, we have councillors in Birmingham who have given themselves a 5.7% increase in their allowances and they tell us that it’s our members who have to pay for it.
‘In Birmingham, the debt is something like £3 billion, the repayments are something like £350 million a year. Around 90% of that goes back to the Treasury. How about restructuring that debt? These are things the government can get involved in to help relieve the immediate situation in Birmingham.
‘Angela Rayner (deputy prime minister) has spoken a lot about the dispute but unfortunately she has got an awful lot wrong. She has claimed that nobody will lose pay. She has claimed that it’s a good deal. But it’s clearly not a good deal based on the vote that we have had today.
‘Over 390 workers were balloted. We are talking about a significant workforce. It nails the lie that it’s not simply about 17 people, it’s far wider than that. It’s time to stop spinning. It’s time to stop telling lies about the numbers in negative briefings.’