Striking Birmingham binmen paid £45,000 a year

The Daily Mail has a report on the refuse collection service in Birmingham. Essentailly there is a scam where the workforce have a perverse incentive not to get the rubbish collecting during the basic hours - thus they get paid to do on overtime.

Cllr Martin Mullaney says:

'What's going on is disgraceful. What we are talking about at the moment is basically an overtime scam.

'Binmen are paid for a 37-hour week, but work only an average of 24 hours, and then qualify for overtime because all the sacks haven't been picked up.

'This is madness and it's not something we should put up with for much longer.'

Human Resources Cabinet Member Cllr Alan Rudge adds:

 'The contract of employment states crews work on a task-to-finish basis.

'This means 80 crews have sufficient time to make scheduled collections from 85,000 households each day.'