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Thousands to mobilise for megapicket as Birmingham strike enters eighth week

As Birmingham’s refuse workers fight brutal pay cuts, Strike Map rallies mass solidarity, with unions, activists, and workers converging to defy scab labour and police intimidation. The message to Labour? Back workers or face rebellion, writes HENRY FOWLER and ROBERT POOLE

Strike Map activists visit striking refuse workers in Birmingham, April 29, 2025 [Pic: Strike Map]

BIRMINGHAM’S bin strikers are now in their eighth week of industrial action, a battle that has captured the imagination of the trade union movement as images of overflowing black bin bags dominate the city’s streets. The dispute has escalated further after the council’s decision to call in the military as scab labour, attempting to undermine the workers’ stand.  

The strike began when Birmingham City Council confirmed plans to slash bin workers’ pay by up to £8,000 a year, claiming the cuts were necessary to comply with equal pay legislation. But many see this as yet another attack in a decades-long campaign of austerity waged against the working class by successive governments, both Tory and Labour.  

With workers across the country sinking deeper into the cost-of-living crisis — and energy prices set to rise yet again this April — it is unconscionable for a Labour council, supposedly representing working-class people, to enforce what amounts to fire and rehire by stealth.  

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Features / 22 December 2020
22 December 2020
The most powerful tool of organised labour is the strike but there is no record kept of where these actions are taking place. Strike Map UK want to change that, write HENRY FOWLER and ROBERT POOLE
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