Why are bin men on strike in Birmingham and how long have they been doing it for?

15 April 2025, 10:00

How long will the Birmingham bin strikes last for and what are they about? Here's everything you need to know as a major incident is declared in the city.

Birmingham bin strikes are continuing across the city as tonnes of rubbish and waste are piling up on the streets, leaving the threat of a public health emergency.

The long-running strike has been on-going since the beginning of the year with a full on strike in place since March 11th as all workers agreed to walk out to fight against the loss of jobs and pay.

In the most recent update, Birmingham bin men have voted to continue with strike action as they "overwhelmingly rejected" the city council's latest offer.

Here's everything you need to know about the rubbish strike from what it's all about, to how long they plan to strike for.

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Why are the Birmingham bin men striking?

Those who are members of the Unite union went on a full strike over how the roles of waste recycling and collection officers were removed. The union claims this move will leave around 150 members £8000 a year worse off.

They also have fears that further jobs, pay and conditions could change in the future.

The union has declared the strike will continue unless all changes for the bin collectors were reversed.

In response, the council has said collection officer jobs were removed to be in line with national practice and counter-argued that only 17 members of staff would lose a maximum of £6,000 in pay.

In a recent update, it has been suggested these strikes happen in further cities across the country as Sharon Graham, who runs the Unite union, told LBC: "If other councils decide to make low paid workers pay for bad decisions that they did not make, workers paying the price yet again, then absolutely, of course, we all have to take action in those other areas."

How long will the Birmingham bin strike last for?

The bin strikes officially began with walkouts, around 350 workers, in January and as of March 11th, they escalated to indefinite strikes after no decent negotiations were made.

As it stands, no official end date has been given but Birmingham City Council is hoping for rubbish collections to return to normal as soon as possible.

Both Unite and the council are open to further negotiations but are yet to have any successful offers put on the table.

What does Birmingham City Council's major incident declaration mean?

With the streets lined with black bags, the declaration means the council will be able to increase street cleaning and fly-tip removal by commissioning 35 extra vehicles to help clean up the city.

Bin lorries will now be able to leave their depot and they can call on local councils to come and help.

Residents have been advised to continue putting out rubbish as normal and leaving it there until it's collected. Recycling collections are currently suspended with people advised to head to local centres to do so.