Birmingham City Councillor Meirion Jenkins has hit out at the "laughing stock" of the city's bin strikes as the walkout by refuse workers passes 100 days.
The bitter dispute with the council was triggered over equal pay for waste vehicle drivers, with more than 200 workers facing pay cuts by the Labour-run administration.
Speaking to GB News, Jenkins told Britain's Newsroom hosts Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner that Labour "refused a debate" on the continued strike action.
He said: "We asked for a debate on this strike, and Labour even refused to debate on the strike. We're a laughing stock.
Councillor Meirion Jenkins has hit out at the 'laughing stock' of the city's bin strikes, warning of an escalating 'health problem'
GB News
"It's 101 days since all out strike action began, but there's been six months of strike action since the beginning of this dispute."
Highlighting the sheer scale of the waste problem in his own ward, Jenkins revealed that a nearby school has not had their waste collected for "10 weeks".
He told GB News: "Just outside my ward, I've got a school that hasn't had a waste collection for 10 weeks. All those leftover school dinners have been sitting in those those bags now with the temperature climbing to 29 degrees.
"It's becoming a real health problem."
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Birmingham's bin strikes have passed 100 days, causing mass buildup of waste in the city
PA
Noting the spiralling costs for the council in allowing the strikes to continue, Jenkins revealed that the council is having to spend around "£100,000 a month" on addressing the health risks.
He said: "The council is having to spend about 100,000 a month on action just to address those aspects of the health considerations.
"I've got old people's homes in my ward, which I'm constantly having to chase to get those collected, because you can imagine when the human waste that you get in old people's homes tends to build up, people are keeping the waste in their showers and in bags. It's every bit as bad as the pictures that you're showing."
Andrew and Bev were astounded by the scale of the problem, as he asked Jenkins: "It must stink in certain parts of the city?"
Jenkins told GB News that there needs to be measures to make it 'more difficult' for workers to raise equal pay claims
GB News
Jenkins stated: "Yes, if you go to the places where there's 10 weeks worth of school dinner waste built up, it will smell."
Outlining what needs to be done to end the strikes and clear the backlog of waste, Jenkins suggested the council must make it "much more difficult" for workers to raise equal pay claims.
Jenkins explained: "What needs to be done is we've got to remove the equal pay risk, which makes it much more difficult for people to raise equal pay claims. At the moment, every month that goes by, and this exercise was supposed to be finished by April, we rack up an additional equal pay bill of up to £14million.
"Then what needs to be done is we need to make the offers subject to a time limit, so the offers that have been made to the grade threes that are going to be downgraded, also now discovered they have to downgrade the drivers as well from grade four, so they've opened up a whole new front.
"Those offers have to be time limited to put an end to it."
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