Union warns Birmingham faces 400+ claims in bin workers dispute, but council suggests it could face another huge equal pay bill

According to Unite, the total liability for the claims would be several million pounds - higher than outlined in a deal it said had been agreed with the conciliation service Acas in May.

The union claimed the council is “wasting millions by not settling – on top of the more than £33 million it has already wasted trying to break the strike”.

According to the union, after the Acas talks ended the council sent redundancy letters to the bin workers, telling them their old jobs were being cut. They were told they could accept new positions on lower grades.

The union added: “Most of these workers only had two real choices: agree to the new lower-paid roles or leave. The large majority of people signed up for the downgraded roles. But this was under duress.”

The council said the downgrades were part of a standard job evaluation process.

However, Unite claimed that the council failed to follow “basic procedures” for a job evaluation, and “ignored the view of the external assessor”.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite will use every tool available to defend and protect its members and that includes legal action.

“Unite’s message to Birmingham council is clear, it needs to return to negotiations and offer a fair deal to its workers. Every day this dispute continues is seeing the council’s costs climb ever further.

“This dispute will not end until there is justice for bin workers.”

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "We have received a number of legal claims from Unite, which the council intends to contest.

“The council has engaged in negotiations with Unite but they have rejected our fair and reasonable offers.

“Unite’s demands would leave us with another equal pay bill of hundreds of millions of pounds, which is totally unacceptable, and would jeopardise the considerable progress we have made in our financial recovery.”

The spokesperson added: “All of the 170 former WRCOs [Waste Recycling and Collection Officers] were successfully redeployed or elected to take Voluntary Redundancy.

“Of the 144 Driver / Team Leaders (DTLs) the majority have agreed to accept the new role with the standard 6 months’ pay protection, with others taking voluntary redundancy or other alternative roles within the service.

“Given this it is hard to understand why the strike is continuing.”

According to Unite, advice from its counsel, Oliver Segal KC of Old Square Chambers, “is clear: there is no ‘equal pay’ liability from settling the strike; but there is a very significant exposure to liability from these legal claims if no deal is made”.

Lottie Winson