‘WE NEED to escalate the action,’ striking Birmingham bin workers at their Perry Bar picket line told News Line early yesterday morning.
The 370 striking Unite members are fighting a union busting operation to slash pay by around £8,000 a year by the Labour council backed by the Labour government.
Paul Jackson said: ‘The council is all of a sudden offering people VR (voluntary redundancy) in an effort to break the strike.
‘We’ve been going for six months now and what we need is for Unite to escalate the dispute but they’re not doing it.
‘I’m on strike to protect my grade and my terms and conditions.
‘But all we hear about is compensation for losing the grade.
‘Unite should stop these lorries but they don’t.
‘I’ve never had a pay cut before and I’m not going to have one now.’
Todd Brady said: ‘We need to stop the trucks. They’ve put a court injunction against us stopping them, effectively giving the council a green light.
‘The union has to win this fight or it will lose all credibility.
‘There needs to be national strike action of all council workers. They’re all going to face the same issues as us.’
Unite Rep Luke Dalton said: ‘Birmingham is the largest council in Europe.
‘The driving grade is the fundamental issue.
‘My concern is that if they successfully achieve a downgrade here it will have ramifications nationally.’
Mike Masters said: ‘This struggle is at the forefront of the country at the moment and everyone is watching what is happening here. It’s got to escalate.
‘We balloted again last week and the outcome was that we are out for another 12 weeks.
‘There was a 75% turnout and 97% voted to stay and keep on fighting. Each ballot has been stronger than the previous one.’
Striker Penny Robbins said: ‘We need to do a march in Birmingham like we did in London on Saturday.
‘More and more people understand what we are fighting for and they sympathise with us.
‘They can see we are not fighting for a pay rise, just to keep what we’ve got, and they want us to win.’
