AN END to one of Britain’s biggest industrial disputes is “within sight” after Birmingham city council and Unite reached an agreement over the long-running bin worker strikes.

Council leader John Cotton announced today that he believed a “new improved offer” could be made to the union’s members who have been on an all-out strike for more than a year.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham hailed the breakthrough as a “vindication of the bin workers’ struggle for a decent deal.”

The union added that “11th-hour” attempts to block the offer by government-backed commissioners brought in after the authority declared effective bankruptcy had led to Mr Cotton’s “statement of intent.” 

The dispute flared over the Labour-run authority’s plans to remove a role in its waste recycling and collection service that Unite said would lead to pay cuts of around £8,000 for hundreds of its members.

But the council said that it was constrained by a pay grading structure that sought to avoid equal pay claims when it walked away from Acas-faciliated negotiations last year.

Mr Cotton said that the new offer “addresses the ballpark issues discussed at Acas” and “would be good for the workforce, represent good value for money and would not repeat the mistakes of the past and risk creating new structural equal pay liabilities.”

Ms Graham said: “Over the last few months, there have been intense negotiations to get the blocked ‘ballpark’ deal back on the table, so that our members could vote on it.

“The reason why we are not yet at that stage is purely down to the vindictive interference of the government-backed commissioners who have attempted to block the deal again and clearly overstepped their remit. 

“Their lack of both experience and industrial relations competence has been a major factor in this dispute, and their malevolent game playing has been an absolute disgrace. 

“The commissioner model is a licence for a few unelected individuals to print money and play games.”

The breakthrough was announced just over a week before the local council elections.

No details were given about the deal. Unite described it as “mirroring the Acas ballpark agreement means that workers would get not six months cushion from the impacts of the job evaluation process but a minimum of two years.”

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