The Birmingham bin strike has reached the six-month mark – with the Unite union pledging it will continue until at least next spring.

The all-out strike by refuse collection workers started on March 11 when members of the union walked out over a dispute about pay.

Six months later, there is still no sign of a breakthrough.

Unite’s General Secretary Sharon Graham said those who had walked out were “resolute” in their determination to continue their strike.

However, she added that the industrial action was fracturing in Unite’s relationship with Labour.

The union is facing legal action over the strike, and Ms Graham has said ot will pay any fines it receives with money from its Labour affiliation fund.

She said: “Our members are resolute in their determination to win this dispute and are disgusted at the behaviour of the Labour council and the Labour Government.”

According to the union, about 171 of its members could be hit with pay cuts of up to £8,000 a year, despite the council spending millions to hire agency workers to collect rubbish.

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But thanks to the strike, pensioners have been forced to endure piles of waste in their own homes.

Lorraine Boyce, in her 80s, told the BBC how her hallway is still being used to store a mound of recycling.

“[The bin strike] is bad for our reputation and our morale,” she said. “I think it’s depressing. People are feeling that they don’t matter.”

While in June this year, Birmingham City Councillor Meirion Jenkins told GB News: “I’ve got old people’s homes in my ward, which I am 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.”

He warned the increasing piles of rubbish were “becoming a real health problem”, and gave one example of a school just outside his ward.

Councillor Jenkins said: “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 bags now with the temperature climbing.”

On September 2, Unite said its members had voted “overwhelmingly” to extend action until March 2026.

Negotiations between the union and the council hit a standstill at the beginning of July, and there has been no major update since.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Unite must urgently end this strike, it has caused untold misery and disruption to the people of Birmingham and its end is long overdue.”