COUNCIL bosses have admitted recruiting an army of non-union labour to run refuse collection services in Birmingham if binmen go ahead with a work to rule and strike.

More than 200 casual staff have been recruited through employment agencies over the past three months.

They are being given council uniforms and trained to pick up refuse sacks, drive lorries and sweep the streets.

The city’s Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition insists it must break the industrial action because it has a duty under health and safety legislation to empty the bins and keep the roads and pavements clean.

But the decision was blasted by the council’s opposition Labour group leader Sir Albert Bore who warned that hiring non-union workers would make relations between binmen and management even worse.