Agency refuse workers told there was a “lack of work”, as reason for dismissal as uncollected rubbish mounts

Commissioner-controlled council blame game and bullying hiding plan to replace directly employed refuse staff with agency workforce

Three agency bin workers fired for talking to colleagues on the picket line have joined the strikes, Unite, the UK’s leading union, said today.

The three temporary workers, one with five years of service and another with two but with minimal employment protections, were laughably told they were being dismissed “due to a lack of work”.

The dismissals occurred after they briefly spoke to striking colleagues on the picket line, before undertaking their collection rounds. Unite is now providing the workers with its full support.
The dispute over the commissioner-led council’s attacks on bin workers has brought into focus the plight of agency staff, who make up at least 40 per cent of Birmingham’s refuse workforce.

A freedom of information request by Unite revealed Birmingham council is paying over £6.5 million a year extra on top of regular refuse worker wages to agency middlemen. One so-called temporary worker has been at the council for 13 years.

In January, despite the huge reliance on agency workers, posters were put up in refuse depot staff rooms inviting all council-employed bin loaders and drivers to apply for voluntary redundancy.

Unite believes that the council’s attacks on pay and offers of voluntary redundancy are part of a plan to replace directly employed refuse staff with a more expensive but much more insecure agency workforce. This is the most logical explanation for the council’s behaviour given that the council would save money, be able to directly employ long term temporary staff and halt the brutal pay cuts, if it stopped using employment agencies.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This is a new low by council bosses – firing workers they know have no protection for merely speaking to striking colleagues. The arrogance and vindictiveness of Birmingham’s commissioner-led council towards low paid hard-working refuse workers is astounding.

“Nearly 400 workers are out on strike, but the council thinks people will believe that just a handful are impacted by its pay attacks. It’s as far-fetched as the council’s claims that low paid refuse workers are responsible for the financial collapse of Europe’s biggest local authority.

“But we know what the plan is: get rid of directly employed refuse staff and give the agencies free reign so workers can be discarded at will and paid next to nothing. It won’t happen on Unite’s watch.”

The council is also blaming refuse workers for the existence of the safety critical Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role, the scrapping of which sparked the strikes. It says the massive pay cuts and blocking of fair pay progression this entails is necessary to avoid equal pay liabilities. 

The council fails to mention, however, that it created and offered the role to its workers, not the other way round.

Refuse collection is hard, hazardous, dirty work, undertaken in all weathers, with heavy machinery, often in congested areas on cramped streets surrounded by pedestrians and passing vehicles during rush hours.

Refuse workers develop expertise and knowledge that is critical to the running of safe and successful services. It is insulting and wrong to dismiss their work as unskilled manual labour and to scapegoat them for the council's chronic mismanagement of Birmingham's failing waste service. 
 
Unite is confident that if a pay evaluation was undertaken by the council, a skilled grade three role in line with other standard local authority assessments and so free of equal pay liabilities would be the result.

Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: “The case for a new grade three role that stops the brutal pay cuts and allows fair pay progression for grade two staff, most of who earn little more than the minimum wage, is affordable and irrefutable.

“The commissioner-controlled council can do this but is telling the public it can’t because it doesn’t want to admit it is prepared to cause chaos for residents for the sake of its race-to-the-bottom agency plans.

“This isn’t about equal wages for other workers – it’s about driving down pay and conditions for all Birmingham council staff, starting with the refuse service.”  

ENDS  

For media enquires ONLY contact senior Unite communications officer Ryan Fletcher on 07849 090215 or 020 3371 2065.

Email: ryan.fletcher@unitetheunion.org

Unite is Britain and Ireland’s largest union with members working across all sectors of the economy. The general secretary is Sharon Graham.