Well, that didn’t last long. The garbage strike that threatened much of Seattle, and broad swathes King and Snohomish counties, ended at midnight last night. It began Wednesday morning.

Waste Management, the sanitation giant that employs scores of garbage truck drivers, came to an agreement with workers yesterday afternoon. “Part of it was them agreeing to stop the strike and meet with us next week,” says Waste Management spokeswoman Jackie Lang.

But the quick resolution comes after an apparent impasse. The strike rose out of a labor dispute between Waste Management and drivers, represented by Teamsters Local 174. As of yesterday both sides claimed the other refused to negotiate, and the company was rapidly flying hundreds of scab drivers in from around the country.

“We are… concerned that if we continued the strike, Waste Management might lock out our members and create another Oakland,” Rick Hicks, the Secretary-Treasurer for Local 174 said in a statement to the press. (The Oakland Waste Management-labor dispute resulted in trash going uncollected for a month.) “At the urging of Seattle Mayor McGinn and King County Executive Constantine,” says Hicks, “we committed to getting this done at the bargaining table and to keep the public out of it, if possible.”

For its part, the company is happy that drivers are back on the job but is pinning the blame on the other side. “We are disappointed because this simply did not have to happen if the Teamsters had just responded to our meeting requests,” Lang says. As I reported yesterday, Local 174 disputes this understanding of events, alleging that the company proposed meetings but never bargaining sessions.

The meeting time for next week is undetermined, but according to Lang “clearly those meetings will be bargaining sessions.”

Benefits are the chief area of dispute in the stalled negotiations. Waste Management’s last contract proposes an incremental five year wage increase, but it cuts back on medical and pension benefits. Local 174 points out that waste workers have one of the most dangerous jobs in America, and that other area garbage companies recognize this fact by offering a standard benefits package. (Which is true of both Cleanscapes and Allied Waste, Waste Management’s regional competitors.) The company claims the union is making unrealistic requests, considering the economic times. This excuse seems a trifle unlikely given Waste Management’s size (it is one of the largest sanitation companies in the country) and its recent healthy profits.

12 replies on “Garbage Strike Already in the Can”

  2. The strike ended because the union realized they were going to be locked out and their jobs given away ..remember the air traffic controllers? Lots of people were lining up for those jobs and the company had drivers from other cities ready to come in and work…. this was a major no win situation for the union. $60K a year is a lot of picket line crossing incentive….

  3. More power to them. It sucks that my full trash bin won’t be picked up till next week and my even more full recycling wont be picked up for two more weeks, but it feels good to see people, workers, not companies, use their positions of power to get what they want. We always seem to accept that businesses can set the rules of how and when and how long we work, but we are not slaves. We need to have a back and forth relationship where the company gives us work and we give them workers w/o one side having too much power over the other. So it feels good when I read about union workers asking for “too much.” Yes, push that limit, threaten them, get what you want. Don’t be a slave.

  5. The key point is that it was a ULP strike – in other words, it was over unfair labor practices by the employer during bargaining. Specifically it was about Waste Management refusing to schedule bargaining sessions. The contract issues are still outstanding, and as far as I know, the Teamsters still have strike sanction if they need to walk out again.

  8. @2:

    I beg to differ. If WM had intended to just “give their jobs away”, they wouldn’t have been ready to spend tens of thousands of dollars shipping in MANAGERS (not drivers as you imply) from around the country to scab the work. And even IF WM had seriously considered a lock-out, those alleged “thousands of applicants” would have required training, which takes time (unless one assumes you can just fill out a few forms get handed a pair of gloves – or, more likely, pay for them out of your own pocket – hop and the truck and that’s all it takes) while at the same time they would been racking up tens of thousands of dollars in fines imposed by the City for failing to live up to the terms of their contract. Plus I’d be willing to bet good $$ the attrition rate for those new-hires would have been astronomical after the first week or two (when many of them final got it into their heads exactly WHY garbage truck drivers earn $60 K per year), which would mean starting the hiring process all over again, costing the company even MORE $$.

    In short, WM couldn’t afford another situation like occurred in Oakland, the Teamsters knew it, and used that knowledge to their advantage. It was a game of Chicken, and in this instance WM clearly swerved first; the rest is just the sort of face-saving game both unions and management play when going back to the table.

    The simple truth is that Teamsters 174 took down the pickets because the ULP strike achieved its intended objective: to get WM to agree to BARGAINING talks with the union. But, there’s nothing to prevent them from going out again if those sessions don’t result in a fair contract offer from management.

  11. Well @10, there’s this, and this, and this, and this, and – well, you get the picture.

    I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you @10, since you probably don’t meet the minimum education requirement, and most likely can’t lift anything heavier than a 64 ounce Big Gulp anyway.

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