Labour-led Sheffield City Council has knocked back the petition handed to it on July 9 by striking Veolia refuse workers demanding recognition for the union of their choice, Unite, at the Lumley Street depot.

The petition was presented to the council following a Unite rally outside Sheffield Town Hall as part of a “mega-picket” earlier that morning to mark 11 months of the strike by around 70 refuse workers since August. Labour heads a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Greens in Sheffield known as the “Rainbow Coalition”.

Unite regional officer Shane Sweeting told the BBC, “Residents have signed this petition and now local councillors must intervene to drag Veolia back to the negotiating table and bring this dispute to an end with Unite being recognised.”

Sheffield City Council, in alliance with Veolia, has denied workers representation by the union of their choice, to protect its sweetheart deal with the GMB. In Birmingham, the Labour council, backed by the Starmer government, has waged an unprecedented strike breaking operation against 400 refuse workers fighting job losses and pay cuts of £8,000–£10,000.

GMB official Peter Davies attacked the petition, denouncing refuse workers’ campaign at Veolia demanding recognition for Unite as “union busting” and claiming that GMB represents the majority of workers through a recognition deal in place for 23 years. But GMB members (and non-union members) were among 150 workers at the Lumley Street depot signing the petition to recognise Unite.

As the WSWS explained about the GMB’s cosy relationship with Veolia: “Workers decamped to Unite after years of below-inflation deals agreed by the GMB, which repeatedly demobilised strike action. Pay at Veolia’s Sheffield subsidiary has fallen by 22 percent in real terms over the past decade.”

The petition’s support belies the GMB’s smears and reflects popular support for workers to be represented by the union of their choice, not one decided through a vetting process determined by the employer. But Unite’s appeal to the Labour led council was a dead end. Workers were granted just three minutes to speak to council leaders. Their appeals—highlighting lifesaving acts and their service during the pandemic—fell on deaf ears.

Opposing the petition, Chair of the Environmental Services and Regulation Policy Committee (ESRP), Councillor Joe Otten of the Liberal Democrats, echoed the GMB’s position and warned that changing the single union deal could provoke industrial action. He red-baited the workers, saying: “If the GMB stops working we’ll all know about it, we’ll be like Birmingham.” He admitted the Veolia contract, running until 2038, was poor value but claimed breaking it would be too costly.

Otten mocked the idea that Unite might improve the service and argued that the dispute in Birmingham, where the workforce is represented by Unite, proved union recognition guarantees nothing, effectively gloating over the strike-breaking operation. Labour councillors, including leader of the council Tom Hunt, offered platitudes about solidarity but backed calls only for Unite and GMB to negotiate.

The council voted to return the petition to the ESRP committee for further consideration, a complete fob off. The entire exercise confirmed the bankruptcy of Unite’s “leverage” strategy—petitions and appeals to Labour politicians—while isolating workers from each other and the wider class. Unite refuses to link the struggle in Sheffield to Birmingham or to make a serious appeal for solidarity from Veolia workers in the UK and internationally. Instead, it has diverted striking Lumley Street workers to lobby Veolia headquarters, shareholders and business partners. No genuine step forward in workers right to organise has been won through winning a sympathetic ear in the boardroom.

Unite moved to suspend from its membership Labour Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Birmingham Council leader John Cotton. But this follows months in which they’ve headed up a strike-breaking operation involving use of Public Order law and a High Court injunction to threaten and disperse pickets. They have run up a police bill of £1 million and are now directly threatening fire and rehire. This has exposed the bankruptcy of the political containment strategy of Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, of applying pressure on those widely recognised by workers as their enemy.  

Meanwhile, with the GMB aiding Veolia, Sheffield council claims the strike has had minimal impact. A High Court injunction was obtained in mid-June by Veolia against striking workers at Lumley Street depot to outlaw slow walking in front of refuse wagons to intimidate and crush the action.

The claims of neutrality by Labour in the dispute are a fraud. Its relationship with Veolia is deeply entrenched having extended its contract from the original outsourcing in 2001, until 2038. In 2017, it claimed it would cancel the contract, only to renegotiate instead. Veolia profits massively from the outsourcing arrangement making £11.7 million in Sheffield last year, while the city faces further austerity from a £34 million budget shortfall.

Earlier this year, a Veolia spokesperson boasted, “2024 was an excellent year… record net income of €1.53 billion, doubled in 5 years.”

The experience in Sheffield and Birmingham shows these struggles must break from the dead hand of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy. Unite’s token actions, including the poorly attended rallies and petition stunt, are designed to uphold its credibility while demobilising the rank and file.

The “mega-picket” at Veolia on July 9, modelled on a similar token event at Birmingham in May (with another planned for Friday this week) confirmed the warnings by WSWS that this type of performative solidarity by Unite and other trade unions would not end the isolation of the dispute. Only around 150 attended, exposing as hollow the declarations of “solidarity” from a long list of sponsors, including the University and College Union, National Education Union, Public and Commercial Services Union, several Trades Councils (Sheffield, Barnsley, Leeds, Liverpool), “We Demand Change” linked to Jeremy Corbyn, and the Socialist Party’s National Shop Stewards Network.

Veolia strikers have shown determination to stand up to the smears and intimidation against them. Their fight can inspire broader resistance—but only through a political break with the Labour Party and the building of independent rank-and-file committees. These must unify workers across depots, cities and borders, waging a real class struggle against Starmer’s Labour government and the corporate profiteers it defends.

Should workers win recognition for Unite at Veolia, their fight to reverse the erosion of pay, terms and conditions under the GMB will require a rank-and-file struggle against Unite’s bureaucratic leadership. In 2022, Unite struck an agreement with Labour-run Coventry council after it isolated workers’ fight against the council’s seven month strike breaking operation. This paved the way for mass job losses, and pay linked to overhauling terms and conditions through increased weekend working and tearing up health and safety.

As WSWS argued in its recent article, “Support striking Veolia bin workers in Sheffield: Build a rank-and-file committee!”, “To open a way forward, workers must build rank-and-file committees—democratic organs of class struggle—to establish direct oversight of their struggles and determine strategy.

“Critical to victory is the ability of workers to appeal to and mobilise solidarity action by their brothers and sisters, not just other refuse workers, but council employees throughout the UK facing similar attacks, and Veolia workers in the UK and internationally. How else can a massive transnational utility company like Veolia, which operates in the water, waste and energy sectors on five continents with 215,000 employees, and which has the backing of national governments and state bodies, be defeated?”