Bin strike talks over Easter if needed - council
ReutersBirmingham City Council has not ruled out talks with union officials over the bank holiday weekend as the bin worker strike continues.
Unite said it was willing to meet over the Easter break but claimed the authority refused to resume negotiations until next week after talks broke down on Wednesday.
However, the Labour-led council told the BBC on Thursday it would meet over the Easter period if necessary.
It came as the authority's leader John Cotton met with local government minister Jim McMahon to update him on the strike and clean-up operation.
Following the meeting, Cotton said the council was making "good progress" on clearing the backlog of waste, which the authority previously said would be cleared by the weekend.
On the talks with Unite, the leader said negotiations could not progress until the union accepted the removal of the Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) role would not be reversed.
PA Media"Our door remains open for further talks. However, to make progress Unite must accept reality," he added.
The councillor said that keeping the role, which the authority claimed no other council has, would risk creating a future equal pay liability.
"That wouldn't be fair for residents or workers and is a red line for Birmingham City Council," he said.
"We are open to good faith negotiations on the basis of the fair and reasonable offer on the table."
The union said it had reiterated to the council on Thursday that it was willing to meet for talks over the Easter weekend.
As well as the WRCO role issue, the union has more recently urged the council to guarantee bin lorry drivers' existing levels of pay.
It said drivers on strike had been told during talks their yearly pay was likely to go down from £40,000 to £32,000.
Cotton previously refused to give any guarantees over driver pay and said the role was the subject of an ongoing job evaluation process that was being undertaken across the local authority.
It came after the union said if the authority "puts in writing what it is saying in public, a deal would be much closer", referring to the councillor's comments to the BBC about no workers needing to lose any pay.
PA MediaAfter the all-out strike started on 11 March, bin bags filled with waste have been piling up across the city as tonnes of waste went uncollected.
Since the start of April, the council has "collectively cleared 20,000 tonnes of waste", the authority stated.
Last weekend, its crews had been clearing about 1,500 tonnes of waste a day, with 100 to 120 refuse collection vehicles out every day.
On Thursday, the council said all of its available waste wagons had been deployed from its three depots in the morning.
Residents continued to suffer from mounting piles of uncollected rubbish, including 72-year-old Frances Jones from Sparkbrook, whose recycling has not been collected since January.
She told BBC Radio WM her front room was filled with bags of flattened cardboard boxes, empty milk cartons and used metal tins.
"At the moment it's mainly in the front room, or in the back. It's not nice. It's just very frustrating and worrying not knowing how long it will go on," she said.
Mrs Jones does not own a car, meaning she is unable to take her recycling to the tip herself, describing it as a "flawed system".
"I feel resentful, this has been going on for a long time, that people without cars have been paying for a service we don't get, we haven't got access effectively," she said.
The council told the BBC that kerbside recycling is suspended but they would take small amounts of neatly bundled side waste.
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