Clad in yellow hi-vis jackets on a picket by a busy Coventry layby, striking bin-lorry drivers wave and raise fists every time a passing vehicle honks in support, which is frequent. History weighs on the minds of the strikers. An engineering and carmaking hub known as “motor city” and the birthplace of the iconic trade union leader Thomas Mann, Coventry’s past cannot be disentangled from that of the labour movement, or a Labour party that has run the council for 43 of the past 49 years.
Yet one of the strikers, 60-year-old Peter Skerrett – a Labour member like his father before him – plucks his party card from his wallet, throws it in the mud and theatrically stamps on it. “How the hell can you keep paying for a political party that supposedly aspires to help workers when they’re actually working against us?”
