Harry Potter star calls on the council to pay bin men fairly and end strike

Harry Potter star Oliver Phelps has called on Birmingham City Council to pay bin men a fair wage and end the strike.

The Sutton Coldfield based actor is among residents who have grown frustrated at the rubbish piling up on the streets and has given his backing to the industrial action.

Oliver and his identical twin brother James played brothers George and Fred Weasley, the brother of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series.

The city council was quick to respond to his tweet stressing that they are modernising the service to improve performance and that there will be no job losses and no cuts to basic pay.

They also apologised for missed collections and said that they are in the final week of a bin strike recovery plan.

The main issue causing the dispute is the cutting of 113 grade three jobs which would mean a loss of about £4,000 annual salary for those wishing to stay working on the bins.

The council insists it has found more than 125 alternative jobs at the same grade and with matched or achievable skills for bin men looking to maintain their current income.

The union Unite has countered that many of those jobs are on fixed term contracts and unsuitable for bin men.

Other changes to the service include spreading the bin men’s 37 hours a week over five instead of four days, creating more of the grade two loader jobs and ending the reliance on costly agency staff and overtime payments.