The Labour Party government has called upon the military to help clear garbage from the streets of Birmingham as a continuing union strike has left tens of thousands of tonnes of trash lining the streets of Britain’s second-largest city.
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner has reportedly invoked Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (Maca) powers to draft British Army experts to coordinate efforts to clear up to 21,000 tonnes of trash left rotting on the streets of Birmingham after the city’s garbage collectors went on strike, the Times of Londonreported.
The left-wing trade Unite union went on strike after the local Labour-run council scrapped the waste recycling and collection officer position to supposedly promote gender equality, after government lawyers argued that the position was created to increase the salary of men.
In 2023, the city went effectively bankrupt after losing a legal dispute which found it was gender discrimination to pay people in male dominated roles like refuse collection more than people in women-dominated ones, like cooking. The £760 million cost and bids to adjust pay scales of heavily unionised workers to respect this court ruling had led to the now weeks-long bin strike.
