Angela Rayner under fresh fire over plans to hand more powers to unions after she failed to stand up to striking barons in Birmingham

Angela Rayner came under fresh fire last night over her plans to hand more powers to unions despite failing to stand up to the barons holding Birmingham to ransom.

After workers voted to prolong the crippling strikes, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told the Mail it was clear unions now run our country.

Hundreds of bin workers have been on an indefinite all-out strike since March 11. They have been protesting against the councils plans to cut the role of waste recycling and collection officer (WRCO).

Ms Rayner had pleaded with Unite to accept a significantly improved offer to end the crisis, but the unions members in Birmingham voted overwhelmingly against the councils proposal this week.

Yesterday it emerged that a group of just 40 bin workers have yet to back down or accept an alternative offer, out of 170 WRCOs.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said the bin strike could absolutely spread to other areas if other councils decide to make low-paid workers pay for bad decisions.

But Mrs Badenoch warned that Ms Rayners workers rights law will hand even more powers to unions.

The Employment Rights Bill will repeal the Trade Union Act 2016, and make it easier for union barons to call walkouts at short notice.

Angela Rayner came under fresh fire last night over her plans to hand more powers to unions

It comes after Raymer failed to stand up to striking barons in Birmingham. Pictured: Uncollected household waste and rubbish blights Primrose Avenue, in Sparkbrook, as Birmingham council refuse collectors continue their strike on April 15, 2025 in Birmingham, England

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told the Mail it was clear unions now run our country

The notice for strike action will be cut from 14 days to ten, and the mandate for taking strike action after a vote in favour will be doubled to 12 months. It also gives unions stronger rights to access workplaces when staff are seeking recognition, and reduces the amount of information unions have to give employers when they launch a strike ballot.

Mrs Badenoch told the Mail last night: The unions now run our country. Everywhere you look things are getting worse. Labour reverses decades of progress in education at the behest of the teaching unions.

Birmingham is drowning under a sea of uncollected rubbish due to union strikes, as their Labour councillors look on.

And Angela Rayners employment rights law as drafted by the unions will kill jobs by making small businesses afraid to hire new staff and repeals the Trade Union Act, handing even more power to the unions.

Labour has dragged Britain back to the bad old days of the 1970s when the trade unions brought the country to its knees.

Craig Cooper, Birmingham councils strategic director of city operations, said: We know that there are 170 WRCOs. We know that 130 of them have already accepted alternatives, whether thats progression to be drivers and training for that, whether thats voluntary redundancy, or whether thats moving to a role of an equal grade and another part of city operations. There are about 40 that havent, and I urge those 40 to look again at whether or not they want progression.

A Labour spokesman said: The Labour government has been clear that there is a fair and reasonable offer on the table and have urged Unite to end the strike. Kemi Badenoch appears to have forgotten the Tory government she served in oversaw the worst strikes in more than three decades.