A sanitation workers’ strike in the second largest city in England, Birmingham, has prompted the local authorities to declare a major incident in the municipality.

Reports indicate that approximately 17,000 pounds of garbage has piled up in the streets attracting cat-sized rodents which are roaming the streets in droves.

The situation in British cities has been deteriorating for several years. Birmingham was forced into bankruptcy during September 2023 when the City Council blamed the settlement of a gender discrimination case for the financial shortfall.

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UK garbage piles up in Birmingham

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In an April 9 article published by the Times of London, it says that the so-called “bin strikes” could easily spread to other municipalities. The settlements of unequal pay claims are being cited as the source of the crisis. Nonetheless, the capacity of the British government under both Conservative and Labor administrations has drastically declined in regard to the ability to address the deteriorating living conditions of the working class and impoverished. Under the present Labor government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the parliament has been debating the level of drastic cuts within the social welfare system.

According to the Times:

“Bin strikes that have left ‘rats and vermin crawling around’ Birmingham could spread to more than half a dozen other areas, as councils grapple with the fallout from equal pay claims, it is feared. Brighton, Sheffield and Barnet in north London are areas where councils are facing claims over structural pay differences in roles carried out mainly by women and those staffed predominantly by men. Government sources told The Times that while circumstances in Birmingham were ‘extreme’ and ‘unique’, there were concerns pay disputes across the country could push local authorities to review their salary structures and open the door to more action.”

Amidst this public health emergency, the current Labor administration has declared that it is committed to dissolving the National Health Service (NHS) without offering a clear alternative to the existing system. For the last two years the British government has been shaken by political instability among the previous Conservative administrations and the persistent industrial actions carried out in numerous sectors of the public services including transportation, healthcare, education, social services, etc. The landslide election victory of the Labor government of Starmer has ushered in a new phase of austerity.

Much of the focus in the state-sponsored and corporate media in Britain has been centered around the deplorable conditions which exist in Birmingham while attributing the public health crisis to the purported “irresponsible” industrial action of the Unite trade union. In actuality, the situation in Birmingham and other municipalities in the United Kingdom are more of a reflection of the worsening predicament of the country and other capitalist states in Western Europe as well as North America.

In what appears to be an impending collapse of the post-Cold War geopolitical configuration in Europe fostered by the United States President Donald Trump, this apparent effort is aimed at generating a renewed phase of imperialist domination. Trump’s negotiations with the UK Labor government and the EU leave no room for any reasonable compromise between Washington and the other leading capitalist states.

These erratic economic policies of imposing unprecedented levels of tariffs will only result in further erosion of the real wages and living conditions of working people internationally. As the level of exploitation and abuse of public employees increases there will undoubtedly be an organized response from the trade union movement and the working class as a whole.

Image: UK Unite Secretary General Sharon Graham

Unite Secretary General Sharon Graham in response to comments made by 10 Downing Street wanted to set the record straight saying:

“It is not surprising that many workers in Britain question the Labor government’s commitment to working people, when it issues a statement clearly blaming bin workers in a dispute not of their making. The bottom line about this dispute is that these workers woke up one morning to be told they would be taking up to an £8,000 pay cut. They are being made to pay the price for austerity and bad decisions by Birmingham City Council. Hold the front page, Unite has already agreed to major changes, with the removal of job and knock and shift pay last year and in Unite’s current proposals there are no equal pay issues. This authority is determined to impose cuts on workers at any cost and has moved the goalposts again.” 

As the decline of profit levels in key industries in the UK and in North America prompt additional degrees of uncertainty and actual large scale economic losses, the policies of Starmer will be placed on the defensive by the workers. The proposed cuts in government services and the increase in military spending can only result in greater domestic social unrest and imperialist military adventures abroad.

The Ukraine war which has raged for over three years inside the country and in the Russian Federation has drained the resources of the NATO states. Trump’s false claims to the U.S. electorate that he had a formula to end the Russian Special Military Operations in Ukraine within 24 hours has proven to be yet another duplicitous maneuver to gain votes. Although Trump told the electorate that he was not interested in international imperialist wars, since taking office he has provoked a global trade war and threatened to seize the territories and governments of Greenland, Canada and Panama.

The domestic and foreign policy priorities in Britain underline the inability to address the calamity in Birmingham. As the leader of Unite said in the same above cited statement:

“Unite’s team of decision makers has been in negotiations in good faith for weeks. It is the leader of the council who is missing in action and who has not been in any of the talks. Indeed, the council are only scheduling meetings once a week. Unite has said it is ready to negotiate anytime and every day if necessary. The government is going to have to wake up and smell the coffee that they are part of this dispute, as the commissioners report directly to them, and they own the £3.9 billion debt of the council. If the government were really concerned about the residents of Birmingham, they would get the decision makers in a room of which they are clearly one, to ensure that Unite’s solutions on the table were adopted. Yet again workers and communities pay the price for government inaction.”

These developments do not portend well for the working and nationally oppressed people within the UK. The trade unions and mass organizations must mobilize the people to take the streets to demand the reversal of the austerity measures imposed on the people.

Birmingham Bin Strike Symbolizes the Global Capitalist Crisis

As in the U.S., ultra-conservative, racist and reactionary political parties and ruling class elements are committed to the total eradication of any form of a social welfare state in the UK. The social contract which arose in the industrialized capitalist states after the conclusion of World War II was a necessity in stabilizing western societies while enhancing the exploitation and oppression of the workers and the oppressed in the imperialist states and the Global South.

With the emergence of the People’s Republic of China and its influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the U.S. ruling class is facing a formidable strategic adversary. Irrespective of the misleading statements from the Trump administration, the U.S. cannot substantially raise the household income of working families while waging a trade war with every other country in the world. The Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus summit (BRICS) at present represents more than half of the world’s population.

Trump’s speeches about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. will soon become his undoing when it becomes obvious that the reliance on draconian tariffs will only result in high rates of inflation, job losses and the weakening of key industries and sectors of the society. In pursuing such policies, he will also damage the UK economy, one of its closest allies.

Consequently, if the UK Labor government will not challenge the Trump administration over its trade war, the workers through their trade unions and popular groupings must take the lead in fighting the latest push toward austerity and imperialist war. The emerging resistance in the U.S. represented by the millions which demonstrated on April 5 and before, should reach out in solidarity to the Unite workers in the UK. The broader alliance of working class forces and the oppressed peoples will ensure the defeat of the attacks being carried out against billions around the world.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image: UK Unite members picketing over labor dispute / All images in this article are from the author

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