Local government minister Jim McMahon has met council chiefs in Birmingham today in a bid to bring an end to the bin strike across the city.
Downing Street said the government would “not hesitate to act” if the council needed support.
The government has been urged to intervene in a dispute involving refuse collectors, which is leading to tonnes of rubbish piling up on the city’s streets.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “We want to see an agreement reached immediately on the waste dispute in Birmingham, which is causing misery and disruption to residents.
“It’s right that this continues to be a locally led response, but minister McMahon will be visiting Birmingham today to meet with Birmingham’s senior officers, commissioners and political leadership to discuss this issue.
Birmingham City Council
“We will not hesitate to act should the council require additional support.”
Labour Party chairwoman Ellie Reeves told the BBC that there were “conversations” going on in Birmingham but that she did not want to “cut across negotiations” with unions.
Government minister, leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell urged Unite to “step up” and continue talks with the council to reach an agreement.
Responding to criticism from the Conservatives over the dispute which started last month and has led to a major incident being declared on 1 April this week, Powell told MPs: “I was in Birmingham just last weekend visiting my in-laws and my husband’s family and the situation there is totally unacceptable, it is awful what people are living with and we want to see it end and end immediately.”
“I think there is a reasonable agreement on the table and the trade union and the council should come to that very quickly,” added Powell, as the Conservatives accused Labour of dragging its feet over resolving the dispute.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham earlier this week accused the council of being “hellbent” on “imposing its plan of demotions and pay cuts at all costs.
“If that involves spending far more than it would cost to resolve the strike fairly, they don’t seem to care,” she said.
Graham claimed that pay and conditions for refuse workers, most earning little more than the minimum wage, had been cut before the current dispute, including £1,000 in shift pay. Around 150 workers were directly impacted with pay cuts of up to £8,000, she said, by the removal of the WRCO role (Waste Recycling and Collection Officer), “which also ends fair pay progression for hundreds of others”.
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