Unite takes legal action against Council over Birmingham bin strike
Unite said Birmingham City Council faces more than 400 legal claims
The union at the centre of the long-running Birmingham bin strike is taking legal action against the council over the pay of its members.
Unite said Birmingham City Council faces more than 400 legal claims from bin workers whose pay the union says has been unfairly attacked.
Workers started taking industrial action over a year ago and have been on all-out strike since last March over claims that planned reforms to the council's refuse collection service would lead to pay cuts of thousands of pounds.
The council maintains it has to reform the service to make it more efficient.
The total liability for the claims would be several million pounds, higher than outlined in a deal agreed with the conciliation service, Acas, in May, said Unite.
If the strike is not resolved before May, whichever party wins control of the council after the election will have to pick up the bill, said Unite.
General secretary Sharon Graham said: "Unite will use every tool available to defend and protect its members and that includes legal action.
"Unite's message to Birmingham council is clear - it needs to return to negotiations and offer a fair deal to its workers. Every day this dispute continues is seeing the council's costs climb ever further.
"This dispute will not end until there is justice for bin workers."
A council spokesperson said: "We have received a number of legal claims from Unite, which the council intends to contest.
"The council has engaged in negotiations with Unite but they have rejected our fair and reasonable offers.
"Unite's demands would leave us with another equal pay bill of hundreds of millions of pounds, which is totally unacceptable, and would jeopardise the considerable progress we have made in our financial recovery."
The council said all of the 170 staff affected by the reforms to the service were redeployed or elected to take voluntary redundancy.
The spokesperson added: "Given this, it is hard to understand why the strike is continuing.
"We have invited Unite on multiple occasions to make a proposal to end the strike, which we would fully and carefully consider, but they have declined to do so thus far."