Labour Councillors John Clancy and Lisa Trickett and Chief exec Stella Manzie must resign given their disgraceful role in the dispute and their lies to the Brum public.
In refusing to even meet to discuss the ACAS/UNITE/Clancy agreement at Cabinet the Blairite Labour Council has shown it’s not interested in resolving the dispute through talks. Instead, they have signalled their intention to smash union organisation in the Council.
This latest act comes after Cllr Trickett has publicly stated that the bin workers were ‘holding the city to ransom’. How dare the council claim there’s not the money to settle the dispute - the council spent £40k a day on an army of untrained ‘Scab Labour’, adding up to £2 million so far spent to break the strike!
If that wasn't bad enough, Council leader John Clancy spent Thursday and Friday denying that a deal to keep the jobs of Grade 3 bin workers had even been struck. Then, over the weekend, a statement from ACAS revealed that just such a deal had been agreed by both parties! The contempt shown by this dishonest approach for both the workforce and the residents of Birmingham is just staggering.
Some will no doubt say that the actions of the Council were 'predictable’. However, it was correct that the union gave an opportunity for talks to succeed. As the council has refused to take that opportunity now is the time to return to industrial action and mobilise the energy, solidarity and tactics that proved successful in forcing the employer to the table and gaining the support of the Birmingham public.
It now has come out that, along with others, Hall Green Labour Councillor Barry Bowles is calling for Clancy to step down. Not because of his lying about the existence of an agreement, or his part in dragging the dispute out...but for not being "tough" enough when it comes to trying to break the union!
Just last week after the u-turn on the deal was announced, the same Cllr Bowles said "We need to follow the advice of the council's officers, who we pay a lot of money to...even if it puts the strike back on"
If councillors like Bowles are only going to do whatever the unelected officers tell them to do, what is the point of them standing in the first place?
If Labour councillors won't stand up for us, we need to be prepared to run candidates against them that will take the fight to the Tories and their cuts!
