THE long-awaited resolution to the Birmingham bin strike is a testament to the strength and unity of the workers who have spent 15 months on the picket line.

The impact of this dispute on their livelihoods, their families and their community should not be underestimated. And yet, throughout it all, the workers stood firm, backed by their union, Unite.

They refused to accept the imposition of dramatic changes to their pay and conditions, and the deletion of health-and-safety-critical roles, without proper negotiation and agreement with the union.

Of course a deal could have been reached much earlier in this dispute but it was blocked by government-backed commissioners, who would rather see workers on picket lines and rubbish on the street, than accept a fair resolution of the dispute that the workers could agree to.

This model for dealing with council deficits — deficits caused in large part by the knife taken to local government budgets under 14 years of Conservative-led governments, and not made good by the current Labour government — is broken.

The idea that faceless bureaucrats can put workers through this misery, in the interests of balancing the books, when the books are stacked against local councils and local communities, must be fought.

The answer to bankrupt local councils must be investment in local communities, not cutbacks. We need a reversal of decades of chronic underinvestment, and real power put back in the hands of local people, or we will see more Birminghams in the very near future.

It should not have taken 15 months to settle this dispute.
Yet, throughout all of it, the bin workers stood together and stood strong.

Crucially, they did not stand alone.

Thousands of workers from right across the country, teachers and nurses, shopworkers and firefighters, postal workers and civil servants, joined them on their picket lines. People came from as far afield as Glasgow, Swansea and Cornwall to stand alongside the bin workers and repeatedly close the depots down.

This solidarity, organised through a series of “megapickets” under the auspices of Strike Map, lifted the dispute, gave confidence to workers and showed the strength of support, right across the working class, for workers in struggle against an unjust decision.

The advent of the megapicket is a potentially significant development in terms of industrial disputes. The basic principle is not new. Indeed, it is as old as trade unionism itself. It is the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all.

It is the same principle that underlay solidarity action during the Grunwick strike 50 years ago, when postal workers refused to handle mail for the company and cut off their mail-order business. It is the same principle that underlay the Battle of Saltley Gate, when over 15,000 picketers, including miners from South Yorkshire and south Wales and workers from right across Birmingham, including engineers and many others, joined Staffordshire miners to close the gates of Saltley coking plant in Birmingham. And of course it is the same principle that underlay the General Strike which began 100 years ago this coming weekend, when workers right across industry downed tools in solidarity with striking miners under the slogan “not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day.”

Of course, all of these examples would constitute unlawful action today, under Britain’s repressive anti-union laws but it is not that simple to kill the spirit of solidarity.

The Birmingham bin workers stood strong for 15 months and workers right across this country stood with them. This is their victory but it is one won in solidarity.