BIRMINGHAM, England — Seven months into their strike at the council-run refuse depots here, hundreds of refuse workers, members of Unite the Union, are winning the support of temporary workers hired by agencies to fill their jobs.
“A growing number of agency workers are refusing to cross the picket lines,” Unite said, “due to unsustainable workloads and a toxic and bullying workplace culture.” Some 100 agency workers continued to work when the strike began, but 20 have now joined the strike against pay and job cuts this worker-correspondent learned when visiting the Perry Barr Depot picket line Oct. 14.
Bosses at the Job&Talent agency initially threatened to block temps who joined the strike from getting permanent jobs. In response, Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham offered the union’s backing to the workers, stating, “Blacklisting workers for union activities is despicable.” Agency bosses later backtracked, saying, “We do not engage in or condone any form of blacklisting.”
On the same street as the picket line, workers at the Johnsons Workwear factory began a series of one-day strikes for better pay. When the refuse workers realized there was another picket line nearby they went over and participated.
Birmingham City Council, backed by the U.K.’s Labour government, is trying to slash the refuse workers’ wages. “They want to lower my wage by over 9,000 pounds [$11,975] per year,” driver Ian Harris told the Militant. “In 2007, they took 600 pounds a month from us and now they want to do the same thing again.”