Unions Strike in Chicago

[Timber Loftis]

Today's Chicago Tribune:

Garbage collectors on strike
Service is halted for city high-rises and most suburbs

By Stephen Franklin and Brett McNeil, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Gary Washburn, Aamer Madhani, Bill Presecky, Susan Kuczka, Joseph Sjostrom and H. Gregory Meyer contributed to th

October 2, 2003

Uncollected garbage began piling up across the Chicago area Wednesday, the first day of a strike following the breakdown of negotiations between major waste hauling firms and 3,300 Teamsters.

It was the Chicago area's first walkout by union refuse workers.

With talks slated for Thursday, both sides were far apart on the wage and benefits issues that had led members of Teamsters Locals 731 and 301 to strike early Wednesday just after their five-year contract expired.

The firms responded by locking them out, saying they had to protect their facilities.

Few welcomed the growing mess.

The dispute involves nearly all city and suburban garbage haulers, except a few non-union firms, most Will County haulers, who are covered by a different Teamsters contract, and several suburbs that do their own hauling.

Some pickups were reported in several suburban strike-bound communities, and Teamsters officials said company managers were driving those trucks.

Chicago residents in single-family homes and buildings with fewer than four units are not affected. City crews will continue to pick up their garbage, which totals as much as 6,000 tons daily. That is about one-fourth of the refuse generated daily in the city, officials said.

While voicing concern, Mayor Richard Daley said he did not plan to step into the fray.

"They are negotiating," Daley said. "Let them negotiate."

The mayor's reluctance to intervene was echoed by city officials, who did not announce any contingency plans.

The situation was rather messy in many suburbs, where striking haulers provide residential services, and others where the strikers' presence led workers from different Teamsters locals to turn away from their work.

From suburban officials to businesses to homeowners, many in the city and suburbs seemed caught off guard by the problem.

The immediate reaction was to cut back on the amount of refuse. At several high-rise buildings in Chicago, for example, residents were urged to limit the non-perishable waste they set aside.

"I hope the strike is resolved soon," said James Boyd, director of the Cook County Housing Authority, which has more than 2,100 units throughout the county. "Do we have a contingency plan? No, but we'll certainly have to figure one out if the strike extends many more days. We can probably use some of our trucks to haul garbage, if we can find a place to dump it."

Some service available

Predicting a quick resolution to the dispute, the garbage haulers said they would rely on managers and non-union personnel to pick up refuse only from area hospitals and airports.

As privately owned dumps and transfer stations in the area began filling up, there was concern that those that have not already closed quickly would shut down and force municipal garbage crews to find other locations.

City officials said they had been assured by Allied Waste Services Inc., which serves Chicago's waste-transfer facilities, that it would be able to keep the refuse moving.

"They are going to have to find capacity for us," said Al Sanchez, Chicago's commissioner of streets and sanitation.

When the two sides walked away from their talks in Countryside early Wednesday, prospects were grim.

They were not near a deal, and Teamsters' officials accused the haulers, led by several national companies, of using the Chicago-area contract to lower wages nationally. Company officials denied that charge.

The last offer from the 16 companies, members of the Chicago Area Refuse Haulers Association, called for a $3.75 an hour increase divided between wages and benefits over five years. The Teamsters were asking for a $6.75 an hour hike over three years.

Teamsters spokesman Brian Rainville said the haulers' offer would mean a cut in benefits and a wage freeze because the union would have to divert much of the increase to its self-managed pension and health-care programs.

Under the contract, which expired Tuesday, the workers' wages ranged from $10 to $21 an hour, depending on seniority. Their health-care costs are covered by the companies. They are eligible for $2,500-a-month pensions after 25 years on the job.

Bill Plunkett, a spokesman for the haulers, said the companies wanted a "realistic" deal to match the current economy.

Long strike called unlikely

Citing the price paid by politicians in places were garbage strikes lingered, Bob Bruno, a labor expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago, doubted Chicago officials would let the dispute drag on.

"To market your city as garbage piles up is very difficult," he added.

On the picket lines, workers said they were only asking for what they deserve.

"If you think moving garbage is easy, go do it for a week and see what you think," said Dave Weddell, 46,of Steger. "Oak Lawn has a leaf pickup coming up and you go pick up one of those bags. It's like picking up a dead body."

Glenda Schaller of Oak Lawn, a single mother with two sons, ages 8 and 9, one of the few female refuse workers, agreed that the work is hard.

"People don't realize how much we're really doing out here--the smell, the rats, handling couches that two people ought to be handling,"

"These [garbage] cans weigh more than me," said Schaller, adding that she usually puts in 12 hours a day on the job.

Meanwhile, health and safety concerns were growing.

"This has the potential to be a public-health problem," said Colleen McShane, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association. Her group is advising members to sort trash more carefully and only place perishables in trash bins.

"Only use your Dumpster for perishable food items, and if it goes beyond that, get more containers," she said.

"The biggest problem is we don't know how long we have to plan for," said Michael Cornicelli, a spokesman for the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago. Everyone, he said, was "frantically" searching for a solution.

In Carol Stream, village officials said they had been assured Tuesday by Flood Brothers Disposal Co. of Oakbrook Terrace that there would be no interruption in service because managers and others not in the bargaining unit would keep the trucks circulating.

But no trucks came, said Chris Oakley, assistant to the village manager, because Flood Brothers changed its mind overnight.

"Basically, they felt as though in doing that [collecting trash] at this early juncture it would prolong the strike and make a hot situation hotter," he said.

When Arlene Halik woke up, peeked out the window of her Mt. Prospect home and saw that her garbage was on the curb, she knew the strike was on.

With her curlers on, she went to the end of the driveway and dragged her garbage back to the side of the house.

"It's terrible," Halik said. "We just did remodeling and have lots of garbage."

In the South Ridge subdivision in Gurnee, Terry Taylor was not happy with the situation. Her 2-month-old grandson soils at least 12 diapers a day.

She planned to put her garbage bags in her garage because the container in front of her home already was filled to capacity.

"But it's going to get awfully smelly," she said.
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Let us take Ms. Schaller as an example. Let's assume she earns in the low range for the job -- let's say $12/hour (which is likely a low guesstimate, if she's been with them anytime). She says she works 12 hours/day -- that's 60 hours in a 5 day week. For 20 of those hours she gets paid time and a half.

Her income:
40 hrs/wk X $12 = $480
20 hrs/wk X $18 = $360
Total: $840

$840/wk X 52 wks/yr = $43,680.

Is this a ridiculously low wage? It's more than (or near to) what low-level police officers, prosecutors, teachers, fire fighters, or nurses make.

Now, for the more senior waste hauler, his/her $18/hr. wage works out to $65,520/yr. That's quite a lot for a manual labor job that has no educational requirements.