Here’s a few photos from week 5 of the strike. The workers heard from Unite’s Howard Beckett this week, and progress is anticipated next. Here’s hoping the Council is starting to see sense. Red salute to Unite Convenor Richard Beddows and all the Shop Stewards who have stood tall, and of course to all the striking workers who are fighting to protect the services for all of Birmingham.

 

 

Jacqui Kennedy, having helped to cause the mess on Birmingham’s streets, then helpfully told Birmingham residents to take their own rubbish to the tip! Councillor Trickett, Labour cabinet member responsible for bins thinks that it’s okay to support £5,000 pay cuts and cause all this disruption so long as she sticks up CCTV camera images from the tip telling everyone it’s okay! And what happened to Clancy’s magic solution this weekend gone? The streets are still an utter mess! Birmingham residents must demand that the Council listens to the demands of it’s workers.

Today, Councillor Trickett’s twitter feed showing the tips looked like this:

Now we don’t want to accuse anybody of misleading the public, especially a friendly Labour Councillor who claims to support trade unionists, but when we went down to Lifford Lane today these were the scenes we found. Draw your own conclusions:

If you can help us to expose these hypocrites please get in touch urgently and help us to tell the truth:

Birmingham City Council, a Labour run Council is implementing these cuts. Well paid lackeys (managers) like Jacqui Kennedy who can earn between £97,000-£120,000 p/a are attempting to cut the wages of the bin men by £4,000-£6,000p/a. She does this because she is paid to do it. She is a mercenary and a class enemy.

The Council and its puppets like Jacqui are also trying to extend the four day working week to five days, increase the workload and squeeze every last drop of blood and sweat from the workers. They are instructed, aided and abetted by the Labour Party Councillors like Cabinet member for Clean Streets Lisa Trickett who gets a minimum of £41,000p/a in “allowances”. Lisa is in the Labour Party and heads the attacks on the bin men. She’s a shrewd politician who in her role as Cabinet member for Clean Streets has caused the biggest industrial dispute for years resulting in piles of stinking rubbish adorning the streets of Birmingham.

To see Jacqui Kennedy put the case for Birmingham city council before she buggered off on holiday leaving Birmingham in a stinking mess, check out the video from the Cabinet office meeting here:

https://birmingham.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/299559/start_time/6518000

Here’s an ITN report from Friday giving some limited voice to the bin men themselves:

Good turnouts again at both Lifford Lane and Redfern Road this morning, our bin men are holding firm despite the attempts by Labour Councillors and biased journalists to turn the public mood against them.

Councillor Clancy is now promising a new approach to rubbish collections that will make a “significant difference” effecively admiting that his attempts last week were a complete failure. The Mail reports that,

“Now the council is implementing clean ups ward-by-ward, aiming to clear up an area before moving on to the next. But even then it could take days to clear the total backlog built up since industrial action began at the end of June.

Speaking before a council watchdog committee Cllr Clancy (Lab, Quinton) said: “Ward by ward people will notice their recycling and refuse being cleared. People are going to notice a significant difference over the next week.””

Clancy’s plan is aimed to keep his own voters happy. Quinton (Clancy’s neck of the woods) benefitted already this week from this “new approach” and Perry Barr men will drive passed Handsworth tomorrow which has not been collected for four weeks and head out to leafy Sutton Coldfield instead.

All the scheming and attempts at strike breaking will not save Clancy in the end. His great plan is doomed to fail. Based on a ward to ward round, taking into account the planned industrial action, most residents will now be lucky if they see a bin man once every three weeks! Public pressure on the Council will increase and the workers resolve shows no sign of breaking.

The Council is so desperate to clear some of the mess that they are now binning everything they can get their hands on, regardless of the fact that whatever cannot be incinerated will go to landfill and poison the environment. All of this will incur extra charges. It seems the Council can find no end of money when it is to be used against the workers. Labour, Tory same old story.

Help us to build public support. Get in touch with the Communist Party:

According to the city council and their spin doctor journalists at the Birmingham Mail, this weekend saw a staggering 52 phantom bin lorries clearing up rubbish and collecting bags. Our spotters saw bin lorries out this weekend, but nowhere near the 52 claimed. In Balsall Heath they drove up major roads like Edward Road but cleared next to nothing.

According to one agency worker who went out on Saturday, three wagons left Perry Barr Saturday morning, two were back in the depot by 2pm, having been instructed by management to break collection rules and clear up “everything” they saw – making a mockery of the Council’s own recycling program. With a handful out at Perry Barr it is believed that Lifford Lane was locked down and we think the number which left from Tyseley was insignificant – probably similar to the four scab crews which go out during the week stabbing their colleagues in the back on a daily basis.

And despite the best efforts of the Tory and Labour union haters & journalists, even the Birmingham Mail’s own comments section has started to queston the lies emanating from Neil Elkes and his city council sources. Their own report notes:

“Scott Stephens @albion585 tweeted: “52? They all done the same Street. Nobody I know has seen them. #embarrassing”

While Mark Gardner @sparkyb28 tweeted: “Nope, no waste or recycling crews in Hall Green B28, maybe should use virtual reality googles to see them.”

@MrT_CompSci described the council’s announcement as #fakenews and demanded photographic evidence.”Read the Source here.

Whats all this costing taxpayers?

The contracting lorries brought in by the Council are reputedly costing the taxpayers £1,000 per wagon per day. Speaking to the men who worked would suggest the number of wagons in use at the weekend was nearer to 20, but if the Council paid all these ghosts and apparitions to work then the cost to taxpayers from this weekend alone would have been £52,000+! And what, the taxpayer may ask, would be the cost of keeping the Grade 3’s – it is thought to be a paltry £330k per year!

So why are the bin men under such sustained attack?

Its clear that Stella Manzie, with the full backing of the local Labour Party is determined to beat the trade unions and break Unite. Why? It is becasue she is motivated by class hatred, a disdain for workers and the conditions of the poor and ordinary men and women. It is because she is a vile servent of capitalism, a person who would pimp their family for money, stoop to any infamy and villainy for Capital. Creatures like Manzie, Kennedy, Trickett worship money not people. If Trickett has visited a picket line in the past it was to advance her own career, it was out of self-interest, she has no common cause with working people. They all hope to break the bin men so that they can get on and break other Council workers. All the Grad 3’s will come under attack, one at a time. That is why the bin man’s fight is OUR fight!

The bin men have not had any significant support from any section of the labour movement or “left” other than the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). On the one side stands the ruling class and their bosses and hired flunkey’s, on the other stands the workers. The CPGB-ML stands with the workers.

If you want to support the bin men, help us distribute the Birmingham Worker and our leaflets to the public fighting the lies with the truth. Get in touch ASAP and help us win this battle:

 

**Jack London was an American socialist. He wrote this poem giving his thoughts on scabs. The full poem is below:

“Ode To A Scab by Jack London

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn’t.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.”

The Birmingham Mail misled the public when it reported on bin man wages this week after Neil Elkes was provided with information by the Council rather than just asking a few lads on the picket lines, i.e., basic journalism. Perhaps Neil was following a legitimate line of enquiry, or maybe he’s pushing Council propaganda, perhaps the NUJ can find out. The result is that the public if not informed, might be mistaken for thinking that the bin men are on strike for more money – when they’re not. What they are opposing is a £4-6,000 pay cut, the loss of a rest day each week and the increase in workload of 1300 more households. Furthermore, constantly referring to the city council’s promise of jobs and claiming that there are therefore no redundancies hides the truth that a promise of a job isn’t a job. If Mr Elkes was told his career as a journalist was at an end but the Mail “promised” to give him the same money cleaning toilets would Mr Elkes not make a fuss and claim he was being made redundant?

Mr Elkes pens the local government stories for the Birmingham Mail and is at risk of going native. When you hang around with people who have power, even limited power like the local Councillors and bureaucrats you can end up thinking that you’re part of the club, one of the important people. A journeyman reporter on a local newspaper cannot merely regurgitate whatever is passed to them by these worthy Councillors who have a very tenous democratic mandate, it is incumbent upon a journalist to check the facts and report from the front line. After all, local journalists are themselves quite poorly paid and contrary to what they might think after attending a council bash and being given a few free sandwiches, the interests of journalists are one and the same with workers everywhere.

So, let’s ask Neil, the next time he reports on the wages of bin men, to put them into a little context and let us know who else gets what at the Council. Here’s a little list of starting salaries at Birmingham City Council to get the ball rolling:

Chief Executive £180,000

Assistant Chief Exec £80,000

Corporate Strategy Head of Service £65,000

Communications Director £75,000

Change and Support Services Strategic Director £135,000

Strategic Policy Head of Service £60,000

Performance Head of Service £50,000

Finance and Legal Strategic Director £135,000

Corporate Resource and Economy Director £85,000

Financial Services Ass Dir £85,000

Head of City Finance £65,000

Finance Manager £50,000

Legal and Democratic Services Director £100,000

Senior Solicitor £50,000

Human Resources Senior Practitioner £50,000

Customer Services Head of Service £55,000

Customer Services Asst Director £75,000 and £100,000

Corporate Strategy Asst Dir £90,000

Who do you think is value for money? Bin men or these over paid lackey’s?

If you want to support the bin men, help us distribute the Birmingham Worker and leaflets to the public. Get in touch ASAP and help win this dispute: