Unite goes to war with Labour over Birmingham

Dear readers — Birmingham’s bin strike continues to make national headlines as Unite the union and the Labour Party go head-to-head. We are seemingly still no closer to a resolution, with the council adamant that it cannot offer the striking workers any more deals and Unite determined to keep fighting.

Also in your Brum in Brief, Birmingham City Council faces legal action in relation to cutting resources to adult day care centres and the Birmingham Pipe and Cigar clubs face each other off in a showdown.

Catch up and coming up:

• At the weekend, Jon Neale dove head first into the history of one of Birmingham’s most daring television studios: the BBC’s Pebble Mill.
• Last Thursday, Dan Cave entered a Stirchley turf war for this article about tension between businesses who want to stay open late and those who claim the neighbourhood is already becoming a playground for drinkers.

Photo of the week

From the Birmingham Museums archives, this postcard of the New City Arcade shows the original, full length of what is now City Arcade (once home to the recently closed Tilt bar) in 1906. Arcades were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries in European cities because they offered shoppers the comfort of browsing under cover from the elements. This one, Historic England tells us, was completed in 1901 and designed by T.W.F Newton and Cheattle, with decorative terracotta and green faience by Doulton and Co and other detailing by W J Neatby. Much of the original arcade was destroyed by a bomb in April 1941.

Big Story: Unite goes to war with Labour over Birmingham

Top line: Unite the union has suspended deputy prime minister Angela Rayner for her role in the Birmingham bin strikes.

The backstory: Since 11 March, Birmingham bin workers have been on an all-out strike prompted by the council’s decision to get rid of Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles, which Unite claims would see 170 workers lose up to £8,000 from their annual salaries. On Thursday, mediated talks between Unite and Birmingham City Council broke down entirely. Council leader John Cotton announced they had reached the “absolute limit” of what they could offer employees. 

Retaliation: On Friday, at their annual conference in Brighton, Unite members voted to pass an emergency motion to “re-examine its relationship with Labour”, plus the union suspended a swathe of Birmingham Labour councillors and Rayner herself. In a statement, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.”

What is Unite’s relationship with Labour? Unite has 1.2m members and historically has been the biggest union donor to the Labour Party. Last year, it changed tack in response to Keir Starmer’s political shift to the centre. Instead of giving money to the party itself, the union gave a total of £553,900 to 86 left-wing Labour MPs, including Rayner.

Meanwhile, Labour, reports the New Statesman, is in financial trouble. A leaked internal document shows the party is currently following a “recovery plan” to bring its finances to a “planned but manageable deficit”. If Unite decides to cut ties with Labour entirely, that clearly won’t help the situation.

Then again, the same article reveals that Rayner reportedly had already cancelled her Unite membership several months ago. So it isn’t immediately clear how harmful this suspension will be. More bizarrely, according to her register of interests, one of the Birmingham Labour councillors who Unite has suspended, Kerry Jenkins, is employed by the union.

Bottom line: While Unite has come out swinging, the dispute seems to be at a complete stalemate. Brummies hoping to see the end of the bin strikes will be disappointed.

Brum in Brief

⚖️ Two adult day centre users have brought legal action against Birmingham City Council after government appointed commissioners tried to prevent a controversial decision to close the centres being examined in more detail. The Guardian reports that an application for a judicial review has been brought in the names of Robert Mason, 63, and Jenny Gilbert, 50, who attend day centres for adults with physical and learning disabilities in the city. The legal challenge argues there was an overreach by the commissioners, in breach of the Local Government Act, when they refused to allow three separate applications by elected council members to “call in” a cabinet decision to close four day centres for further scrutiny. James Cross, acting on behalf of Mason, his uncle, who attended a day centre in Harborne for 45 years, said the commissioner had “made a mockery of local government” by overriding the established process and preventing full scrutiny of the closures. The Guardian contacted commissioners in Birmingham for comment.

🐾 Birmingham’s last remaining greyhound racing and speedway track is to close next month. The Perry Barr stadium was built in 1928 and won’t quite make 100 years, closing after its Hall Green counterpart did in 2017. Speaking to BirminghamLive, Chris Black, Perry Barr’s general manager, said greyhound racing will move to a purpose-built track in Wolverhampton while the speedway team will cease to exist. 

🚬 The Birmingham Pipe Club and Birmingham Cigar Club met on Saturday evening at the Plough & Harrow Hotel on Hagley Road for their convivial annual black tie dinner. The Secretaries of the two societies have an Ashes-style showdown for a piece of Stourbridge glassware called ‘The Cullet’, containing shards of a bottle of port belonging to the Cigar Club which a sheepish secretary of the Pipe Club let slip in the Great Charles Street Queensway underpass 25 years ago. The Secretary who puffs on a Churchill cigar horizontally for the longest without the ash dropping is the winner, and along with The Cullet earns the privilege of organising next year’s dinner. The Cigar Club’s Andrew Deeley — six-times winner of a separate smoking trophy — told The Dispatch, “You need a very steady hand and the wind blowing in the right direction.” Reporting by Josh Neicho.

Quick Hits

🚨 A teenage boy has been found dead in a lake in Sutton Park. He was reported to have gone missing on Thursday evening. The BBC writes that local fishermen attempted to save him.

⚽ Wolverhampton Wanderers players and staff paid respects to former team-mate Diogo Jota, who died earlier this month alongside his brother in Spain. Jota had just won the Premier League with Liverpool, the BBC reports. 

Media picks

📰 Regular Dispatch contributor and Brummie music fan Dan Cave made his Guardian opinion debut last week. In the article, he ponders on the current wave of revival gigs which have the nation in a frenzy, most notably Oasis and Black Sabbath. But, he asks, with smaller venues like the Crown where Sabbath played their first shows at risk of being eradicated, are we losing out on the potential for a new generation of exciting music?

📺 Long time BBC documentarian Adam Curtis has built a cult following, largely for his leftfield approach to marrying archive footage with popular music. He has previously tackled subjects such as the Soviet Union’s collapse, capitalism, and the Middle East. His latest series paints a picture of an unravelling UK, from 1979 onwards, with Birmingham, and Coventry, featuring prominently in the first episode. Curtis uses Midlands examples of racist murders and politicians ratcheting up racial tensions for their ends to argue that Britain was being torn apart from this period onwards. 

Our to do list

🏊‍♀️ Looking to cool down in this heat? Worcester Triathlon Club hosts a Monday evening open water swimming session at Arrow Valley all summer. Safety briefing and wetsuit hire are included.

🎶 For those looking to get even sweatier: multi-award-winning global Afrobeat sensation Burna Boy is taking to the stage at O2 Academy on Tuesday. Take your dancing shoes.

🍫 Cadbury’s has a long legacy of looking after its workers. Did you know thisincluded giving staff access to the arts? Learn more at Selly Manor Museum this Thursday with Professor Catherine Hindson.

🍜 Fans of Norman era buildings and prize-winning street food should head to Tamworth Castle on Saturday for Tamworth Dining Club. Munch meatballs inside a Motte and Bailey.