After an 11-day strike by sanitation workers that left trash piling up in Daly City, Fremont, and several other cities, it looks like the garbage will start being collected again.
Late Friday, waste management company Republic Services announced a tentative agreement had been reached with the local Teamsters working at Manteca’s Forward Landfill.
“Local 439 has informed us that picket lines are coming down across the Bay Area, and our employees are returning to work tomorrow,” a company spokesperson said. “We appreciate the community’s patience throughout this situation, and we will work hard to catch up with needed recycling and waste collection as quickly as we can.”
The union said its members will vote on the deal soon.
“Teamsters Local 439 members at the company demonstrated incredible strength and solidarity throughout this process,” union spokesperson Matthew McQuaid said.
The local sanitation workers strike began July 8, following a similar stoppage in Boston on July 1. Thousands more Republic Services workers across the Bay Area formed picket lines in solidarity. San Francisco, which has a contract with Recology to handle waste services, has not been affected.
The labor dispute brought service delays that have been felt — and smelled — across the region. But who was driving the few collection trucks still operating during the strike?
“Scabs,” according to union representatives.
Striking Teamsters told The Standard that Republic Services had flown in half a dozen nonunion workers from Texas, who has been learning their way around the Bay Area, from one overflowing garbage bin to the next.
Republic Services workers Cristal Gomez and Heriberto Velasquez traveled from Manteca’s Forward Landfill to picket this week outside a Republic facility on Edgeworth Avenue in Daly City. Gomez — holding a sign that read “Hold your nose: Republic Teamsters on strike” — had also heard the rumor that their employer was “bringing people from Texas” to replace striking workers.
Before the announcement of a tentative agreement Friday, this reporter asked a group of drivers walking outside the Daly City site if any of them were from Texas. All said they were but declined to give their names.
“We don’t pay much attention to the politics of it,” one said. “We’re just here to work.”
Teamsters spokesperson Matt McQuaid told The Standard that “Republic Services’ usage of scabs from outside of California demonstrates that nobody in the community supports this company.”
“The fact that they have to resort to this tactic is pathetic,” he added.
From their picket line along Edgeworth Avenue, Gomez and Velasquez said they are seeking better wages, healthcare, and pension benefits. They said other Republic Services drivers already receive the benefits they are requesting.
“We would have closed a contract, we would have been back to work, nobody would have had to strike if they would have given us something fair,” Gomez said.
Republic Services General Manager Kathryn Tekulve on Friday referred questions to a media email address. The day before, she said employees at the San Joaquin County facility are “engaged in a temporary work stoppage and are picketing at other Republic Services Bay Area locations,” according to a statement posted on Daly City’s government Facebook page. The city has directed residents to temporary trash drop-off locations at two city facilities.
In the statement shared with Daly City, Tekulve said Republic Services “respects the rights of our employees to engage in collective bargaining.”
Some Daly City residents took the strike’s effects in stride, while others took umbrage.
Walking along Wilshire Avenue on Thursday and checking a bin, Leonor Alvarado said her husband had received a phone call saying there would be trash pickup that day, but recycling and compost would not be collected.
“It’s because the union is fighting for its contract,” Alvarado said. “We just have to cross our fingers.”
On Higate Drive, Nestor Mariano gestured across the street to a few homes. Outside one, trash overflowed from a blue Republic bin.
“I understand they have the right to protest, but they should still pick up trash. They still have a contract,” he said. “I’ve never seen it this bad before.”
Mariano said he would not bring his trash to either of the city drop-off points. “Why should I do that? It’s not my job,” he said.
The tentative deal came after David Canepa, president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, threatened to invoke emergency powers and pursue alternative waste management partners if Republic Services does not resolve the labor dispute by the end of this week.
In a letter to Republic Services President and CEO Jon Vander Ark dated Thursday, Canepa said the company has failed to meet its basic obligations since the strike started, calling the situation “no longer just an inconvenience” but “a public health crisis.”
Canepa said waste collection services have been severely disrupted in Daly City, Colma, Half Moon Bay, and several unincorporated rural communities, with rotting waste threatening safety and quality of life.
“It’s just nasty — it’s not a good situation,” Canepa said. “But it’s an easy answer.”
Canepa told The Standard he had not heard about replacement workers being flown in from the Lone Star State but took a dim view of the tactic.
“These replacement workers are not the right decision,” he said. “This is just them really rubbing salt not only in the union’s eyes but the community’s eyes. It’s really a joke.”