UNITE general secretary Sharon Graham accused Labour of being “complicit in attacking workers” after talks over the Birmingham bin strikes broke down today.

She warned the walkouts could now last a year after council leader John Cotton said that the Labour-run authority was “walking away” from negotiations with Unite after reaching “the absolute limit” of what it can offer.

Lorry drivers are now at risk of compulsory redundancy.

Mountains of rubbish have been seen across the city since bin collection workers walked out in January.

Conciliation service Acas has been mediating in the negotiations since May, with an all-out strike by the union going on since March.

A spokesman for Unite hit out at Mr Cotton’s “threats to effectively fire and rehire striking bin workers,” adding: “The bin workers are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000 — up a quarter of their wages for some — and have an industrial action mandate until December.

“They have been told to accept these lower terms or be made redundant.”

Ms Graham added: “Let’s be very clear, what Birmingham city council has proposed is fire and rehire in a Labour council under a Labour government.

“Council leader John Cotton has never been in negotiations and Angela Rayner, who is responsible for the government commissioners, is now complicit in the fire and rehire of these workers.

“Yet again workers are being asked to pay the price for the incompetence of this Labour council and Labour government.  

“It is little wonder workers are deserting Labour in droves when they seem to be hell-bent on attacking workers and leaving the super-rich totally untouched.

“This should not be happening under a Labour government that promised a new deal for working people. It turns those promises into a complete joke.

“But let me be clear, the threats won’t work. Angela Rayner and John Cotton’s shambolic mismanagement of this dispute just makes it more likely that the strikes will continue into Christmas and beyond.”

The union walked out on strike after claiming 170 workers would face losing up to £8,000 a year due to the council's decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles.

In April, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner met Birmingham Council leaders to discuss ways to clear the “waste backlog” that had seen the authority declare a major incident a week previously.

Unite had a day earlier accused Downing Street of “blaming bin workers in a dispute not of their making,” saying that its members were “being made to pay the price for austerity.”

“The government is going to have to wake up and smell the coffee that they are part of this dispute, as the commissioners report directly to them and they own the £3.9 billion debt of the council,” Ms Graham said at the time.

“If the government were really concerned about the residents of Birmingham they would get the decision-makers in a room of which they are clearly one, to ensure that Unite’s solutions on the table were adopted.”

The following month, she said that the regrading of bin workers should actually be called out as “fire and rehire.”

Mr Cotton, who insisted today that the council had negotiated in good faith, said the authority would “press ahead to both address our equal pay risk and make much needed improvements to the waste service.”

He claimed that the plan does mean waste service staff jobs would be axed.

Voluntary redundancy options remain on the table, as well as “opportunities for training and redeployment across the council,” he said.

Birmingham City Council declared itself effectively bankrupt by issuing a Section 114 notice on September 2023.

A key reason was its £760 million legal bill for equal pay claims.

Mr Cotton said: “Unite’s demands would leave us with another equal pay bill of hundreds of millions of pounds, which is totally unacceptable, and would jeopardise the considerable progress we have made in our financial recovery.”

Acas spokesman Kevin Rowan said: “It’s unfortunate that this round of talks have concluded without resolution.

“Acas remains available to both parties should the situation change.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was contacted for comment.