The Birmingham bin strike is a symptom of British decline

For nearly five weeks, piles of rubbish taller than most people have lined the streets of Birmingham – what is supposed to be the UK’s second city. Rats, some reportedly the size of kittens, have begun to roam the streets like they own the joint. Last week, locals became so desperate that they mobbed a bin lorry, hurling uncollected rubbish at it out of frustration. The city is, nearly by definition, a dump – much to the chagrin of proud Brummies who have always, quite rightly, rejected that tag.

As things stand, more than 21,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish is lying across the area run by Birmingham City Council, the biggest municipality in Europe. The hellish state of the city has been caused by a dispute between the council and Unite, the trade union representing refuse workers. Unite, which says budget cuts will leave 150 workers with reduced salaries, started indefinite industrial action in early March. So far, the council has refused to budge, insisting that only 17 staff would take home reduced salaries under the proposed pay deal. Roughly 400 workers have downed tools and there appears to be no end in sight.

The sheer scale of incompetence that has led to this situation is vast. The crisis goes back to 2023, when Birmingham declared bankruptcy after it was required to pay more than one billion pounds in equal-pay claims dating from 2012. It also lost close to £100million in a failed IT upgrade in 2022. In September 2023, when the city said that it would not be able to afford the further £760million needed to settle the equal-pay dispute, it activated what is known as a Section 114 notice and was placed under the guidance of commissioners.

The council promptly got to work, raising taxes by an eyewatering 17.5 per cent over two years and cutting £150million in services. Inevitably, these cuts filtered down to refuse workers, a cut the council has defended as ‘crucial’ if it is to become ‘financially sustainable’. But, as astute ratepayers have observed, this ‘crucial’ need didn’t stop the Labour-led council from voting to increase its own salaries by nearly six per cent in January, more than double the rate of inflation, on the grounds that it would help them appeal to more ‘diverse’ candidates.

If anything, it is phoney ‘equalities’ policies that got Birmingham into this mess in the first place. Those equal-pay claims that bankrupted the council had nothing to do with pay discrimination as anyone would traditionally understand it – of women being paid less for performing the same role, for instance. At the core of the case was the fact that teaching assistants, cleaners and catering staff – public-sector jobs that tend to be dominated by women – didn’t receive certain bonuses, but the city’s (predominantly male) street sweepers, grave diggers and bin men did. What were, in reality, sweeteners to coax people into the latter, less glamorous roles were deemed ‘sexist discrimination’.

This decision not only ruined the council, it forced them to abolish some of the supposedly ‘sexist’ roles that formed the basis of the equal-pay claim. Refuse workers, understandably unhappy about being shifted into new, lesser-paying jobs, are the main antagonists in the current strike. There are now concerns similar strikes will spread across the country, as other councils scramble to fall into line with what is being called ‘work of equal value’ measures – ie, paying the same, for completely different roles, purely to maintain a superficial gender balance.

Still, if Birmingham residents hoped this mess would be remedied by government-mandated commissioners, they will have been left sorely disappointed. Indeed, the commissioners, who cost the council up to £1,200 pounds a day (excluding travel, accommodation and food, which they also charge the council for), appear to have done little since January, when the first refuse strikes began. Local-government secretary Jim McMahon, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and PM Keir Starmer have also been conspicuous in their absence during this dispute.

While councillors, commissioners and the government sit on their hands, Birmingham continues to endure almost medieval sanitary conditions. Last week, the owner of a pest-control business claimed to have caught a 22-inch rat and complained that he had hardly had a day off in three months. On the weekend, a mechanic told the Guardian that he had repaired 15 cars whose battery wires had been chewed through by rats since the strikes began. The rats are so big that agency contractors, hired by the council to do the job of striking refuse workers, have been caught on camera fleeing a garage when they came into contact with one.

The conditions have been described as ‘Third World’ by locals. But only Britain’s feckless rulers could do this to a once-great city. Bin-strike Birmingham is an indictment of the UK and the mediocrities in charge of it.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.