Rubbish piles high in city as bin strike drags on

A conflict between the local government and the union has caused Birmingham's sanitation workers to go on strike. The city's streets are overflowing with garbage - and rats are running rampant.

Russell Jones's Week Moment: Billionaires, Miscarriages of Capitalism, and Bin Collections

Photo: Peter Lopeman/Alamy I launch into this week’s column with my privileges fully checked. I’m a straight, white, middle-aged Englishman with a home, a car and a job that occasionally pays me. I have no disabilities, I’m moderately healthy, and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never experienced any kind of mental illness.So the Labour government’s forthcoming £5 billion of cuts to benefit payments won’t directly affect me at all. I have bigge…

As Birmingham grapples with bin strikes and 'rats as big as cats', councils fear further cuts

Fixing the city's problem depends on one clear solution: more cash. But as councils are painfully aware, rising costs mean even more pressure over the coming years.

Bin strike sparks 'rats the size of cats' warning in UK's second-biggest city

A bin strike in Birmingham has resulted in rubbish piling up in the streets and sparked warnings about "rats the size of cats", with residents claiming the rodents are "just everywhere".

Birmingham bin strike: lorry mobbed as rubbish piles up

Police had to be called to disperse crowds as a walkout by the city’s refuse collectors entered its second week

UK: Birmingham refuse workers on indefinite strike against pay cuts

Unite is doing everything to disarm its members, with Birmingham City Council used as a test case to enforce a level of austerity—against its 1.1 million population—outstripping that imposed under successive Tory-led central governments.