The Birmingham bin strikes

Birmingham City Council has declared a major incident as an estimated 17,000 tonnes of waste remain uncollected in the city after bin workers walked out on strike.

With reports of giant rats and a worsening stench, what was "once a leading contender" for this country's second city is now "making the news as a basket case", said CapX.

What's the strike about?

Waste collections have been disrupted since January, and an all-out strike started on 11 March when members of the Unite union walked out following the council's decision to scrap the role of waste recycling and collection officer.

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Amid fears of further attacks on jobs, pay and conditions, Unite said the dispute will not end unless "hugely damaging" cuts to bin collectors' wages are reversed.

The union claim a planned restructuring of Birmingham's refuse service will see 50 workers lose £8,000 a year and about 20 lose £2,000 per annum. But the council has said only 17 staff members will be affected, losing a maximum of just over £6,000 in pay.

A refuse worker in Birmingham told The i Paper that she was already living "hand to mouth", so plans to cut her pay by at least £6,000 a year had left her "absolutely devastated". With bills "going up", she added, the change would leave her "homeless".

What's going on?

Locals said that rotting food is attracting foxes, cockroaches and rats. Some of the rodents are the size of cats, and people are concerned about the spread of disease. "I'm afraid to open my front door, they're everywhere," one resident told The Guardian.

Joseph McHale, a rat catcher, told Sky News that a "super highway" of the rodents has developed in Birmingham, with millions of them in among the mountains of discarded bin bags and waste.

When will the strike end?

The city council has said it hopes for services to return to normal as soon as possible, but negotiations between its officials and Unite have not been successful up to now.

Angela Rayner has been "forced to intervene" after a union boss accused her of standing by while the crisis unfolded. Jim McMahon, the local government minister, was dispatched to "confront" council chiefs, said The Telegraph, but there have been no reports of a breakthrough.

Sharon Graham, the boss of Unite, said there was a lot more Labour could do to alleviate the crisis, such as “freeing up funds” to settle the dispute by “cutting the interest rate on Birmingham's debt”.

The strike, now in its fourth week, has evoked memories of the seven-week refuse collection strike in London in 1970, in which the army was eventually sent in to clear away the capital's mounds of rotting rubbish.

Has this damaged the city's reputation?

Regardless of any settlement, there are fears about the reputation of the city in the wake of so many damaging headlines. The Birmingham Chambers of Commerce said the strike is "undoubtedly harming the image of the city" and "making it less attractive for residents, visitors and businesses".

"It's really affecting our city's reputation," one local told The Guardian. "I have friends abroad, they ask me are you living in that 'rubbish' city?"