Labour should not “hold back” in supporting workers who go on strike to improve their wages, Andy Burnham has said.
Asked about running for the party’s leadership again, the Greater Manchester said he may “one day” consider this but noted he had already failed twice.
Mr Burnham was interviewed at an Edinburgh Fringe event on Tuesday.
Waste and recycling workers have gone on strike in the city and piles of rubbish have accumulated around bins in the city centre.
Mr Burnham said he supported the waste workers, adding: “I observe what has happened here as similar to Westminster where councils have been cut to the bone.
“This is the consequence of it – these things have consequences.
“I’m all about local empowerment, getting power and resources into the hands of people at local levels to build communities and I see the opposite having happened here, power has been hoovered up to the centre and out of cities.”
Mr Burnham was interviewed by former Labour MSP Neil Findlay, who asked him what the party’s response to the current wave of industrial action should be.
Deregulation and privatisation is contributing to the rising prices, Mr Bunham said, adding: “We’re in a cost-of-living crisis where we don’t control the basics.”
He said: “Labour – it’s not a time to be neutral. It’s a time to, I think, come forward and call it out quite clearly.”
He continued: “I was quite clear, you cannot do anything other than, in my view, support people who are fighting for their families, their incomes at this particular moment in time.
“It’s not a time to hold back and sort of hedge your bets and be tentative. I think you have to be clear about this cost-of-living crisis.”
Mr Burnham was also asked about whether he would run for Labour’s leadership again.
He said he was enjoying his current role but added: “I would say ‘one day’, I’m not saying ‘nope, definitely not’. You obviously have to become an MP to become leader.
“I’m not making any active moves to get back.”
He said abandoning his current position as mayor to become an MP would mean he had failed in building an alternative vision for devolution in England.
He said: “This English experiment with devolution I think is something that could provide something of a solution for the terrible state of politics across the UK.
“One day, maybe it’s not now, if the party would have me, having rejected me twice, that would be something I would obviously consider.”
