UK
Birmingham Bin Strike Mega Picket 2: Five Sites, One Day!
“We are organising Mega Picket 2: Five Sites, One Day! Twenty-six organisations from across the trade union movement, including RMT, ASLEF, NEU, NASUWT, and the BMA, will be converging on Birmingham and Coventry.”
By Robert Poole and Henry Fowler, co-founders of Strike Map
As of this writing, refuse workers in Birmingham have been on strike for 127 days. The Labour-controlled Birmingham Council is threatening them with breathtaking pay cuts of £8,000. Pause for a moment and consider how that would affect you and your family. What effect would the loss of nearly £700 a month have on you? Perhaps a missed rent or mortgage payment? What would you need to sacrifice to cover this drop in income?
For most working people, losing so much money simply isn’t an option. Add to this the constant attrition caused by the rising cost of living, and you can see why the dispute has become so bitter.
Strike Map has been involved in fundraising over £3,600 of financial support for this strike. In May, Strike Map visited Birmingham to deliver a cheque to the strike fund of the beleaguered workers, and what we saw was chilling: a heavy police presence, including custody vans, and the threat of the military being drafted in. The purpose was clear: to intimidate workers and force them back to work. We knew a unified response was needed, a show of solidarity from the trade union movement.
In only a matter of hours, the steering committee of Strike Map organised what we dubbed “The Megapicket.” Our plan was simple: we would arrange a demonstration in Birmingham and send out a call for support. We called, and you answered. Hundreds of union members travelled on coaches from as far as Bristol and Leeds to the Lifford Lane depot in Kings Norton, Birmingham, to stand shoulder to shoulder with their striking brothers and sisters.
The demonstration led to the council shutting down the depot, forcing the scab workers to turn around and go home. The council is using every dirty trick in the book, including agency staff to fill the roles of striking workers. We thought that maybe these agencies didn’t realise the harm they were doing, so we encouraged supporters to let them know by writing and calling them. This led to Surecall Recruitment Ltd stopping the supply of scabs.
Rather than recognise that this show of support was indicative of the mood of the city they are supposed to serve, Labour council leaders have doubled down. Talks with ACAS have stalled, and they announced last Wednesday that they plan to effectively fire and rehire striking bin workers. Birmingham City Council is currently £3.2 billion in debt, paying £200 million a year in interest alone to Central Government, and once again, workers are being forced to pay the price for fourteen years of Tory austerity and mismanagement by politicians of all stripes.
The government has the power to step in and end this dispute, but our pleas are falling on deaf ears. Unite the union even made a symbolic move to strip Angela Rayner of her union membership at their conference.
Council bosses are resorting to the courts to undermine strike action and won a court injunction in June to stop workers blocking scab vehicles entering depots. Unite is mounting a challenge against this, but legal victories aren’t enough on their own. They need to be enforced and supported by practical, on-the-ground power.
That’s why on July 25, 2025, we are organising Mega Picket 2: Five Sites, One Day! Twenty-six organisations from across the trade union movement, including RMT, ASLEF, NEU, NASUWT, and the BMA, will be converging on Birmingham and Coventry.
We are calling on the whole labour and wider trade union movement to join us as we support the picket lines from 6 AM on July 25 at:
- Atlas Depot, B11 2AS
- Lifford Lane Depot, B30 3JJ
- Perry Barr Depot, B42 2TU
- Ryton site (Coventry), CV8 3EJ
- Veolia Incinerator, B11 2B
RSVP to let the strikers know you are coming here.
Victory to the Brum Bin Strikers!
- Robert Poole and Henry Fowler are co-founders of Strike Map. You can find out more about Strike Map here, and follow Strike Map on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
- This action is supported by: Artists Union England, ASLEF, BFAWU, Blacklist Support Group, Birmingham TUC, British Medical Association, Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, Equity, FBU, GFTU, HCSA, NASUWT, National Education Union, NHS Workers Say No!, NSSN, PCS, Peace and Justice Project, POA, Psychotherapy and Counselling Union, Royal College of Podiatry, RMT, Security Industry Federation, Strike Map, Troublemakers at Work, UCU, We Demand Change.
- Get in touch via strikemap@gftu.org.uk to add your organisation
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