BIRMINGHAM, England — Cheers from three dozen striking refuse workers at the Perry Barr Depot here greeted the decision by a garbage-truck driver to turn his truck around and honor their picket line May 20. When a cage truck full of bin bags approached the depot to be unloaded, its driver also made no attempt to cross the picket.
That was 10 a.m. and “it’s been happening all morning since 5:30,” strikers reported. It was the same story at the other two depots here, Lifford Lane and Atlas. This has resulted in nearly 13,000 tons of rubbish piling up in Birmingham over the week. Workers had extended their picketing after cops scaled down their presence following the Birmingham City Council’s strikebreaking effort to clear garbage from the streets.
Hundreds of workers have been on strike since March 11 over moves by the Labour Party-led City Council to eliminate a safety-critical job and cut wages of over 200 drivers and loaders by up to 8,000 pounds ($10,800) a year. The council has engaged in other “cost cutting” moves to eliminate jobs since it declared bankruptcy in 2023, in public libraries and special education.
The strikers are winning solidarity, with visits to the picket line by fellow trade unionists, messages of support, and invitations to speak at union meetings, as workers around the country feel they have a stake in the strike’s outcome.
Perry Barr union representatives Mike Masters and Luke Dalton addressed the biennial conference of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Leicestershire May 19. “We got a big response,” Masters told the Militant. “I told them that people have said this is like a strike from the past. I’d like to think it shapes the future.”
The City Council has won a temporary court injunction aimed at weakening the picketing, which council leader John Cotton claimed was “violence.”
The court ruled that all picketing be “in accordance with legal provisions,” Independent Television News reported. The Unite union said the actions of its members on picket lines were lawful and peaceful.
The workers “have the full backing” of the union, reported Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham. “Losing up to a quarter of their pay means many won’t be able to pay mortgages or rent, or cover other basic living costs,” Graham wrote in the Guardian May 21. “Perpetrated by a Labour council enthusiastically backed by a Labour government,” she said, “this cannot be allowed to happen.”