Aggressive efforts to defeat the bin-workers’ strike in Birmingham are escalating, so we need to show them as much solidarity as possible, argues Robert Horsfield

Shamefully, someone in Unite briefed against their fellow members to the BBC ahead of the ballot over whether to accept the current deal on Monday.

Throwing red-baiting into the mixture, they alleged that Unite’s national leadership ‘and some others seem to be in the grip of people for whom disruption, disputes and revolution are their priority.’

This does not reflect the mood on the picket line. ‘Nobody wants to work for just food and bills.’ This was what one striking bin worker told me on Friday at the Atlas depot in Tyseley. ‘Unite are willing to fight for us until the end’, he added.

Bin workers recognise what the deletion of the grade 3 role and up to £8000 per year to over 150 bin workers means for other local government staff. Another worker said, ‘It’d be fair game for other government workers if this goes through and it’d  affect workers across the board, even people stocking shelves in Tesco.’

This sense of the stakes is apparent on every picket I’ve visited during the current dispute. ‘They’re taking money off us workers who can ill afford to lose it. The people who’ve misspent the money should be the ones who lose it, not us.’

The deal on offer to the bin workers on Monday will likely not reflect their value, as indicated by the fact so few details about the offer have come out, combined with the drastic measures we’ve seen over the last month to break the strike: Section 14 orders to delay agency refuse workers; calls by councillors and MPs to bring in the army and emergency workers to clean up the streets; even neighbouring councils pitching in to cancel out the stoppage of work.

If the deal isn’t accepted on Monday, it’s crucial for every socialist and everyone sympathetic to the strike to come together and discuss ways of escalating support for the bin workers.