L.A. city sanitation workers disciplined for on-duty protest
Months after dozens of city trash trucks circled Los Angeles’ civic center as part of a union-backed protest, a city official said more than 100 sanitation workers have been disciplined for taking part in the demonstration while they were on duty.
Enrique Zaldivar, who heads the Bureau of Sanitation, said the 102 workers received written reprimands for engaging in “workplace wrongdoing.” He declined to provide specifics, but said workers were warned they would face more consequences if it occurs again.
The hulking trash and wastewater trucks descended on downtown L.A., horns blaring, for the July 1 demonstration sponsored by Fix L.A., an advocacy group whose members include several city labor unions. The event, protesting what the group described as “predatory” banking fees being paid by the city, snarled traffic around the Civic Center during much of the morning rush hour and culminated in a rally outside City Hall.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks later wrote Mayor Eric Garcetti demanding an investigation of city vehicle use during the protest. This week, he said sanitation workers who left their assignments to attend the protest should have received more severe penalties.
“I don’t know if you could have a more blatant misuse of city resources than to demonstrate in city vehicles, using city gas, on city time,” he said. “And at the same time, [they were] blocking city employees from getting to work, and blocking the financial industry from getting to work.”
Scott Mann, a spokesman for Fix L.A., said in an email he believes Parks’ objections triggered the sanitation inquiry. Employees participated in the demonstration, he wrote, because they wanted city leaders to “hold Wall Street accountable to taxpayers and fund neighborhood needs.”
“The sanitation workers who participated are passionate about city services for the community and felt it was worth the risk of disciplinary action to raise awareness of the millions being spent on Wall Street fees,” he said.
Seventy-six of the disciplined workers were trash truck drivers and 26 were wastewater collection drivers, Zaldivar said.
The protest focused in part on financial deals that activists say are charging the city excessive interest rates. In recent weeks, council members moved to terminate or restructure those agreements.
Parks said he found the demonstration “offensive” in light of a legal settlement reached this year with trash truck drivers. The council voted to pay $26 million to end a lawsuit filed by nearly 1,100 drivers who said they were improperly barred from sleeping in their vehicles during meal breaks.
A judge concluded that those workers were entitled to compensation for lost break time over several years.
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