The contract staggered on through the spring with occasional skirmishes between the sides. It finally collapsed yesterday.The trigger was the introduction of new collection schedules and routes last Monday. Union leaders warned that the new schedules were unworkable and that many staff would have to ignore them. In response, Sita asked the council for permission to track rubbish vans by satellite so they would know workers' locations at all times.When the schedules came into force at dawn on Monday, 13 binmen refused to work the new rounds They were suspended. Most of the company's 250 employees launched a lighting strike and 131 were immediately sacked by Sita.In the meantime, however, the binmen had occupied the company's depot at Hollingdean, in Brighton.

Thrown on the defensive, Sita tried to recruit new staff and collect at least some rubbish bags, but public sympathy was with the binmen. And anger at what city residents described as "Third World" conditions was directed at the company and the council.Yesterday, the council announced a deal that amounts to an unqualified victory for the workers. Sita will pay £3m to end the contract while the 131 sacked staff will be reinstated on the same terms and conditions as before. The council has three months to find a replacement company for Sita. Gary Smith, a spokesman for Brighton GMB, said the workers were hoping to put together a bid with a local recycling co-operative, Magpie."This will be seen as a landmark dispute," he said. "We had public support and we were not holding the community to ransom It was a multinational holding them to ransom. It has been about the question of whether private companies are best placed to deliver public services.

It should dispel the whole myth of private-sector efficiency. Labour politicians should be very careful what they say about that. We should be trying to reinvigorate the public sector ethos."A spokesman for Sita said it had successfully run rubbish collections in other places, including Bristol, and had tried to consult the workforce at every stage.Ken Bodfish, leader of Brighton and Hove council, admitted the refuse collection service had been "appalling" under Sita, but, although all 18 rubbish vans were operating throughout the city yesterday, he said it was likely to be some time before life returned to normal.With thousands of people expected in the city for the London-to-Brighton bike ride tomorrow, Mr Bodfish has asked residents to keep their rubbish inside until routine collections restart on Monday.. A final and unexpected humiliation has been heaped on the union whose members fought and lost one of the longest and most bitter industrial disputes of the last decade. A final and unexpected humiliation has been heaped on the union whose members fought and lost one of the longest and most bitter industrial disputes of the last decade. The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) has been forced, against its will, to grant membership to the strike-breakers it still holds responsible for defeat in the two-year Liverpool dock strike ­ a dispute whose rancour and violence was dramatised by both Jimmy McGovern and Ken Loach.The 150 strike-breakers were crane and forklift truck drivers who, when drafted in to replace striking dockers, rendered futile a picket outside the gates of the Port of Liverpool's Royal Seaforth dock, which was in place from 1995 to 1997.Four years after the end of the dispute, an industrial tribunal in Liverpool has ruled that the TGWU's refusal to accept the men ­ who were recruited from Drake Port Services and ran a gauntlet of abuse to keep the port open ­ holds it in breach of contract.For the two men from Drake whose test cases were used to force the hearing, Neil Salinas and Bill Williams, the prospect of sitting in union meetings among those who despise them apparently holds no fear."Those jobs were already advertised and the former dockers had already left. We never wanted compensation, we just wanted to be accepted into the union," said Mr Salinas, 55, of Woolton, south Liverpool.

"We crossed an unofficial picket line but did nothing illegal. We feel we need representation from a union on issues such as health, welfare and pay."The two men entered the maelstrom soon after September 1995, when five workers from a cargo area were summarily sacked for refusing to work overtime.The workforce of 80 downed tools and set up a picket line the following morning at the dock, where 300 men were employed. It was a wildcat strike and Mersey Docks and Harbour Company immediately laid the men off before recruiting Mr Salinas, Mr Williams and others to replace them.The impoverished strikers were eventually ground down in October 1997, when 300 men accepted a £28,000 pay-off from the company. At the time, the TGWU was criticised by some strikers for its refusal to lobby for support from the International Transport Federation (ITF), which would have spread the dispute across the world.Yesterday, David McCall, the North-west secretary of the TGWU, said the workers' membership had been rejected on the basis that they undermined their negotiations to get sacked dockers back to work. "The regional committee decided that the Drake workers who had been recruited not only deprived the sacked dockers of their livelihood but also undermined our negotiating attempts to reinstate them," he said.

"We considered that such individuals had made themselves ineligible for membership."But the chairman of the industrial tribunal, Keith Robinson, concluded that the workers had been unlawfully excluded. "We believe the union acted in good faith because [it was] placed in an impossible position, but we find that the union are in breach of their contract," he ruled.From being labelled "scabs", both men now find themselves in the curious role of being champions of a cause. "We have battled for years for the case which needed to be brought to attention. We have been successful in representing the other workers in the same situation as us to seek the support they deserve from the union," said Mr Salinas..