Bin strike deal offer watered down, says union
A deal offered to striking bin workers in Birmingham has been watered down, their union claims.
Unite has called for further negotiations with the city council after a "ball park" proposal discussed at talks with conciliation service Acas had been revised "by government commissioners and the council leader".
An all-out strike in the city is now in its third month, after staff walked out on 11 March over plans to downgrade some roles, which the union says could cost workers £8,000 a year.
Birmingham City Council has been approached for a response over the current deal it is offering.
Talks between the Labour-run council and Unite have been taking place with the conciliation service since the start of May, after previous negotiations to resolve the strike ended without a solution.
The union's latest statement accuses the authority of missing deadlines on the proposals which had been tabled on Friday evening.
"After weeks and weeks of saying one thing in public and another to workers, the government commissioners finally allow a proposal to be put on the table," said Unite's General Secretary Sharon Graham.
She said the offer had been watered down by the council leader and government commissioners "who were not in the negotiating room".
Ms Graham said the offer would be discussed with reps over the weekend and a detailed response would be issued ahead of a reconvened Acas meeting.
"The actual decision makers now need to be in the room at the further ACAS talks," she said.
A court order preventing striking workers from delaying bin lorries leaving depots in the city will continue indefinitely, it was confirmed on Thursday.
The union said it was preparing to challenge the injunction, but said it agreed to abide by the law on picketing.
On 23 May, when the injunction was granted, the city council said disruption at depots had led to a backlog of up to 12,800 tonnes of waste.
Police recently scaled down their presence on picket lines, where they had been helping to ensure bin trucks could get out of the depots, to prevent waste piling up on city streets.
The West Midlands force withdrew after stating the issues did "not meet the threshold" to impose powers under Section 14 of the Public Order Act.
Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Bin strike picket court order to continue indefinitely
Council gets court order over bin lorry blocking
Union blames council for lack of bin strike deal
Why are Birmingham bin workers on strike?
Birmingham City Council
Unite the Union
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
UK to build up to 12 new attack submarines
The UK will build up to 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister will announce as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday. The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to "warfighting readiness" to deter growing threats faced by the UK. Sir Keir Starmer will say up to 12 conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines will replace the UK's current fleet from the late 2030s onwards. The prime minister is also expected to confirm the UK will spend £15bn on its nuclear warhead programme. Sir Keir will say that, alongside the UK's nuclear-armed submarines, the new vessels would keep "Britain and Nato safe for decades". The Strategic Defence Review, commissioned by Labour, will shape the UK's armed forces for years to come. Led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson it will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full. Defence review to send 'message to Moscow', says Healey Healey expects UK to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2034 Other announcements in the review will include: Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an "always on" munitions production capacity Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces Pledge to set up a "cyber and electromagnetic command" to boost the military's defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers Defence Secretary John Healey has signalled he is not aiming to increase the overall size of the Army before the next general election. On Sunday, he said his "first job" was to reverse a decline in numbers with a target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers "in the next Parliament". Building the new submarines will support 30,000 jobs into the 2030s as well as 30,000 apprenticeships and 14,000 graduate roles across the next 10 years, the Ministry of Defence said. Healey said: "Our outstanding submariners patrol 24/7 to keep us and our allies safe, but we know that threats are increasing and we must act decisively to face down Russian aggression." The Astute class is the Royal Navy's current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles. As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK's trident nuclear missiles. In the Astute series, HMS Agamemnon, was launched last October and Agincourt is under construction. The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal agreed in 2023 by the Conservative government. Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident Missiles is already under way. The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government's commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent. In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards. The MoD's Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines. Commitments on military spending come against the background of the government's wider review of departmental spending due later this month and have also taken on renewed importance given the Ukraine war, and pressure from Nato and US President Donald Trump for European countries to step up defence spending. Sir Keir has committed the government to spending 2.5% of the UK's national income on defence by 2027, up from 2.3%, but has faced pressure to commit to 3%. Healey said the target will be hit by 2034 but the Conservatives say the threshold should be hit earlier. The Liberal Democrats have also argued for a 3% spending target. Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said Labour's review should be "taken with a pinch of salt" unless the government showed there would be enough money to pay for it. Head of NATO, Mark Rutte has called on allies to spend 3.5% of its GDP on defence, with a further 1.5% on defence related expenditure. The government has said it wants Britain to be the leading European nation within the NATO alliance but that might prove difficult when a significant number of allies exceed the UK's military spending. It says its review will reverse decades of underinvestment in Britain's armed forces. But it remains to be seen if the investment will be enough. The ambitions of past defence reviews have rarely been matched by resources.
Politico
4 hours ago
- Politico
After talks with Zelenskyy and Macron, US senators warn: Putin ‘is preparing for more war'
PARIS — Russian President Vladimir Putin is stalling at the peace table while preparing a new military offensive in Ukraine, two senior U.S. senators warned Sunday, arguing that the next two weeks could shape the future of a war that has already smashed cities, displaced millions and redrawn Europe's security map. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal spoke to The Associated Press in Paris after meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and touring neighborhoods shattered by what they called the worst Russian bombardments since the full-scale invasion began. In Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron — who they say is '100% aligned' with them on the war — the senators warned the window to prevent a renewed assault is closing. A sweeping U.S. sanctions bill could be the West's last chance to choke off the Kremlin's war economy, they said — adding that they hope their firsthand findings will shift momentum in Washington and help bring a skeptical President Donald Trump on board. 'What I learned on this trip was he's preparing for more war,' Graham said of Putin. Blumenthal called the sanctions proposed in legislation 'bone-crushing' and said it would place Russia's economy 'on a trade island.' 'It is crunch time for Putin and for the world because Russia is mounting a new offensive,' he said. At the heart of their push is a bipartisan sanctions bill, backed by nearly the entire U.S. Senate but still facing uncertain odds in Washington. It would impose 500% tariffs on countries that continue buying Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations like China and India that account for roughly 70% of Russia's energy trade and bankroll much of its war effort. Graham called it 'the most draconian bill I've ever seen in my life in the Senate.' 'The world has a lot of cards to play against Putin,' he said. 'We're going to hit China and India for propping up his war machine.' With peace talks yielding little and Trump's approach to Ukraine highly uncertain, Graham and Blumenthal have stepped into the breach — blunt emissaries on a lonely mission. Political opposites moving in lockstep, they're crossing Europe, and the aisle, with the moral urgency of two men trying to forestall another Russian offensive before it's too late. Peace talks are scheduled to resume Monday in Istanbul. But Ukrainian officials say Moscow has yet to submit a serious proposal — a delay both senators described as deliberate and dangerous. 'Putin is playing President Trump,' Blumenthal said. 'He's taking him for a sucker.' The senator said Putin 'is, in effect, stalling and stonewalling, prolonging the conversation so that he can mount this offensive and take control of more territory on the ground.' Graham added: 'We saw credible evidence of a summer or early fall invasion, a new offensive by Putin. ... He's preparing for more war.' Trump has yet to endorse the sanctions bill, telling reporters Friday: 'I don't know. I'll have to see it.' Graham said the legislation was drafted in consultation with Trump's advisers. Graham backed the president's diplomatic instincts but said, 'By trying to engage Putin — by being friendly and enticing — it's become painfully clear he's not interested in ending this war.' Blumenthal hoped the bipartisan support for Ukraine at least in the Senate — and the personal testimonies they plan to bring home to Congress and the Oval Office— may help shift the conversation. 'He needs to see and hear that message as well from us, from the American people,' he said of Putin. In Kyiv, the senators said, the war's human toll was impossible to ignore. Graham pointed to what Ukrainian officials and Yale researchers estimate are nearly 20,000 children forcibly deported to Russia — calling their return a matter of justice, not diplomacy. Blumenthal described standing at mass grave sites in Bucha, where civilians were executed with shots to the head. The destruction, he said, and the stories of those who survived, made clear the stakes of delay. 'Putin is a thug. He's a murderer.' Both said that failing to act now could pull the U.S. deeper into conflict later. If Putin isn't stopped in Ukraine, Blumenthal said, NATO treaty obligations could one day compel American troops into battle. After a one-hour meeting with Macron in Paris, both Graham, of South Carolina, and Blumenthal, of Connecticut, said they left convinced Europe was ready to toughen its stance. 'This visit has been a breakthrough moment because President Macron has shown moral clarity in his conversations with us,' Blumenthal said. 'Today, he is 100% aligned with that message that we are taking back to Washington.' Blumenthal pointed to the rare bipartisan unity behind the sanctions bill. 'There are very few causes that will take 41 Republicans and 41 Democrats and put them on record on a single piece of legislation,' he said. 'The cause of Ukraine is doing it.' Ahead, Ukrainian military leaders are set to brief Congress and a sanctions vote could follow. 'President Trump said we'll know in two weeks whether he's being strung along,' Graham said. 'There will be more evidence of that from Russia on Monday.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
The UK must raise defence spending
The danger with any defence review is that it ends up fighting the last war or failing to anticipate the next threat. We are about to have the third in 10 years, which suggests the long-term planning that supposedly underpinned the previous reviews has been found wanting. The current review has been undertaken by, among others, Lord Robertson who as Labour defence secretary under Tony Blair oversaw an earlier iteration completed in 1998. It created the Joint Reaction Force and most controversially commissioned two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers seen at the time as a sop to Scottish shipyards and Labour's MPs north of the Border. One of those carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, together with accompanying strike group, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific at a time when tensions with China are growing. The US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has somewhat alarmingly suggested that a possible assault on Taiwan is imminent. This has been denied in Beijing but the military build up is ominous and is causing concern in the region. Australia's defence minister has called on China to explain why it needs to have 'such an extraordinary military build-up'. His counterpart in the Philippines has called China 'absolutely irresponsible and reckless' in its the face of this development, the £6 billion investment in carriers able to project UK power as part of a wider coalition designed to stop Chinese expansionism does not seem such a poor investment after all. It has taken close to 30 years for the threat to materialise in the way it has, which is precisely what a strategic review is supposed to do – look to the long term. The latest takes place against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, something that was considered highly unlikely as recently as the 2015 review, even though by then Crimea had been annexed by Moscow. Anticipating the threats to national, regional and global security is difficult but they have not really changed that much in the past three decades. The biggest upheaval is in the willingness of the US to continue bankrolling the rest of the democratic world, which it is no longer prepared to do. The new reality is that much more money needs to be spent on defence than the 2.5 per cent of GDP promised by the Government. Unless we see a financial commitment commensurate to the threat this latest review risks foundering before it takes off. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
