Waste Management reaches agreement with Teamsters; truck drivers returning to work

A days-long, region­wide strike against Waste Man­age­ment by its recy­cling and garbage truck dri­vers will like­ly be over as of tomor­row, thanks to suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tions that result­ed in a new mul­ti-year con­tract, the com­pa­ny and Team­sters Local 117 announced this evening.

The strike began last week when recy­cling truck dri­vers began pick­et­ing Waste Man­age­ment after the com­pa­ny broke off nego­ti­a­tions on a new con­tract. After the strike began, Waste Man­age­men­t’s garbage truck dri­vers (who have a sep­a­rate con­tract) walked off the job in sol­i­dar­i­ty with their broth­ers and sis­ters, result­ing in missed curb­side pick­ups across the region, from Seat­tle to Red­mond to Auburn.

As recent­ly as a few hours ago, it appeared the two sides were at log­ger­heads, and the strike would be con­tin­u­ing for some time. Waste Man­age­ment revealed yes­ter­day that it was prepar­ing to bring in replace­ment dri­vers, which jus­ti­fi­ably drew con­dem­na­tion from the Team­sters. But now it appears this labor dis­pute is over. Here’s Waste Man­age­men­t’s state­ment on the res­o­lu­tion of the strike:

Waste Man­age­ment and Team­sters Local 117 have reached a ten­ta­tive agree­ment on a new 6‑year con­tract. Team­ster lead­er­ship and the bar­gain­ing com­mit­tee will ful­ly rec­om­mend that mem­bers approve the new con­tract at the rat­i­fi­ca­tion vote sched­uled for 9:00am on Thurs­day, August 2, 2012 at the Union Hall in Tukwila.

Garbage dri­vers will return to work in the morn­ing and begin ser­vic­ing their reg­u­lar Thurs­day col­lec­tion routes. How­ev­er, due to the tim­ing of the rat­i­fi­ca­tion vote, recy­cling and yard waste col­lec­tion will be limited.

All Thurs­day RESIDENTIAL cus­tomers in King, Sno­homish, and Skag­it coun­ties: Please place all of your reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled carts out for col­lec­tion. We appre­ci­ate your under­stand­ing as we work to restore ser­vice to our communities.

All Thurs­day COMMERCIAL cus­tomers in King, Sno­homish, and Skag­it coun­ties: Please set out and/or unlock your con­tain­ers as you nor­mal­ly would on a ser­vice day. We appre­ci­ate your under­stand­ing as we work to restore ser­vice to our communities.

To all of our cus­tomers, we sin­cere­ly apol­o­gize for any incon­ve­nience this labor dis­rup­tion has caused. Thank you for your con­tin­ue patience.

We com­mend Waste Man­age­men­t’s exec­u­tives for com­ing to their sens­es and return­ing to the bar­gain­ing table to nego­ti­ate in good faith with the Team­sters. If they had only done so soon­er, this strike could have been avoid­ed. The com­pa­ny’s dri­vers are pro­fes­sion­als who pro­vide a cru­cial ser­vice and they deserve to fair­ly com­pen­sat­ed for their work. That’s all they have been ask­ing for.

Sev­er­al of us at NPI are among the thou­sands who have been affect­ed by the strike. While we don’t mind hav­ing to wait anoth­er week for our recy­cling, trash, and food scraps to be picked up, we do not appre­ci­ate the way in which Waste Man­age­ment respond­ed to the strike pri­or to the com­pa­ny’s deci­sion to return to the bar­gain­ing table. Threat­en­ing (and prepar­ing) to bring in replace­ment work­ers to break the strike was a bad move.

We’re very glad to hear that the eighty plus mem­bers of Team­sters Local 117 — who duti­ful­ly pick up our recy­cling every week — have reached agree­ment on a new six year con­tract that hope­ful­ly pays them a liv­ing wage.