In one corner is Republic Services, the nation’s second-largest trash and recycling company. In the other stands the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the large and tenacious labor union that represents thousands of Republic employees.
Since July 1, roughly 450 Republic Service workers represented by the Teamsters in the Boston area have been on strike, and the work stoppage has since spread to involve several thousand workers across the country. In California, sanitation workers have walked off the job in cities in Orange and San Diego counties as well as the Bay Area.
Santa Ana warned about the delays and asked residents to leave their bins on the curb so they could eventually be serviced. In Anaheim, where delays began last week, city officials said Sunday that 50% of customers in the downtown area had had trash collected, with last week’s pickups expected to be made up in coming days. Trash piled up in Fremont, Calif., dumpsters and streets, with several cities warning of lags in service. And in Chula Vista, in San Diego County, Mayor John McCann called for a special City Council meeting over the stoppage’s impact there, floating the possibility of declaring a state of emergency in part due to the hazards of stagnant waste.
Workers outside Boston are not themselves on strike, but at select facilities in California and elsewhere, they have opted not to cross the picket line as a way to intensify pressure on Republic Services, a publicly traded firm based in Phoenix. The Teamsters have promised more such strike extensions.
“Republic Services has been threatening a war with American workers for years — and now, they’ve got one,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien in a statement that accused Republic of underpaying rank-and-file employees while lavishing executives with multimillion-dollar compensation packages. “The Teamsters have had it with Republic. We will flood the streets and shut down garbage collection in state after state.”
The two sides met with a federal mediator on Friday but did not reach a deal, and the company fired back at the Teamsters in a blistering statement that called the union “a threat to our employees and our communities.” The company said its pay proposal would boost compensation by 43% over five years, and include generous retirement contributions and “zero-premium healthcare.”
The company was also fighting the inclusion of a contract provision that allowed Boston Teamsters to join work stoppages by fellow union members at cities across the country, the very provision that Teamsters have been invoking to join the labor action.
So far in Southern California, a supermajority of workers at Republic Services facilities in Huntington Beach, Anaheim and Santa Ana have joined the stoppage, as well as in Chula Vista.
Republic Services provides waste disposal to multiple cities in L.A. County, including Alhambra, Inglewood, Whittier and La Cañada-Flintridge, and it also provides waste and recycling services to South L.A. and the northeast San Fernando Valley.
Sites in L.A. County have not been directly affected.
“So far, the city has not experienced any impacts,” confirmed Tonya Shelton, a spokesperson for the L.A. Department of Sanitation, who said the agency was “prepared to activate its contingency operations plan if necessary to ensure uninterrupted service.”
In Chula Vista, McCann, the mayor, said it was “incredibly unfair” that his city was dealing with the impact of a strike on the other side of the country.
“The goal they want to do is to get better wages and better opportunities for the drivers in Boston, but we have no control over that,” McCann said. Drivers from Arizona and other areas were working overtime through the weekend to keep up with Chula Vista’s trash service.
Teamsters officials said the blame should go to the leaders of Republic Services and their business practices.
“To the millions of Americans seeing their trash pile up because of Republic’s strike, remember one thing: This corporation has hauled in $77 billion,” said Victor Mineros, the director of the Teamsters Solid Waste and Recycling Division, in a statement. “Republic can easily afford a fair and competitive contract that meets the needs of everyday hardworking Americans.”
