Council ordered to withdraw redundancy notices in bins row ahead of full hearing

A High Court judge has ordered Birmingham City Council to withdraw redundancy notices it served on 113 refuse workers ahead of a full hearing.

Unite has agreed to suspend industrial action involving the workers until the hearing, the date of which is to be confirmed. The union has also agreed to suspend calling further industrial action as part of the ruling.

Refuse workers had earlier this week voted to extend their strike action by a further 12 weeks after the first day of fresh action.

The row is over the council’s plans to ‘delete’ the grade 3 bin loader role, a move that Unite said left workers facing pay cuts of up to £5,000 to keep a job in the refuse service.

The union and Birmingham were said to have reached an agreement at Acas that saw the retention of the grade 3 role with refuse workers moving from a four day week to a five day week in return.

However, the council “without warning” issued redundancy notices to the affected workers, Unite said.

A council statement earlier this month said it had issued redundancy notices to ‘grade 3 leading hands’ in the refuse service to protect its legal and financial position.

The union’s assistant general secretary Howard Beckett said: “This judgment will be a huge relief to Birmingham’s bin workers, who in just a matter of weeks were facing losing their job or pay cuts of up to £5,000 a year.

“The High Court ruling leaves Birmingham council’s unfair and unjust plans in tatters. The council needs to reflect on how it got here and the misery it has inflicted on the people of Birmingham and its own bin workers. 

“At no stage did the council raise in court the issue of equal pay and potential costs. This scaremongering has been outed by the court proceedings as a work of pure fiction.”

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: “We obviously accept the ruling which will mean further consideration by the courts. The council wants to offer the best possible refuse service for citizens and wants to work with Unite and all the other unions to do this. We remain committed to resolving the dispute as quickly as possible and we hope Unite will support us in doing this.”