Westminster : Sanitation Workers Offered 1% Wage Hike

There were frayed tempers and picket signs and closed sessions--all signs of an ongoing work stoppage--but in the end, there were indications that a two-day strike in the Midway City Sanitation District may be resolved today.

Workers marched past the district offices on Cedarwood Avenue in Westminster on Wednesday while some sanitation district board members who were meeting inside characterized the action as a “wildcat strike.”

The board met in closed session Wednesday afternoon and voted to offer the union a 1% wage increase. Attorney James Harker, who represents the 46 trash collectors, drivers, mechanics and sewer cleaners in the employees’ association, said he would meet with his clients this morning to consider whether to call off the strike.

“The main reason we went out was to get them (board members) off the dime,” Harker said. “They’ve made an offer, but 1% certainly doesn’t engender much confidence in the collective bargaining system.”

Workers’ pay now ranges from $6 to $11 an hour, with an average of $8.50.

Outside the district office, 24 employees carried signs reading “Keep Your Toilets Flushing” and “Honk If You Hate Trash” as they continued their demand for an 8% wage hike. Harker denied the “wildcat” description, saying that the district had plenty of verbal notice of the strike.

He said that a negotiating meeting is set for Monday and that the strike could continue if the union decides the district’s counterproposal is not enough.

Board member James Evans said the district may have to borrow money to make ends meet this year despite a recent increase in residential trash rates from $2.75 to $4 a month. He said the shortfall is caused by a 300% increase in insurance rates and the loss of county subsidies for trash service.

“This is a wildcat strike. It wasn’t legally called,” he said, noting that the district attempted to arrange a negotiation session last week but got no response from Harker.

The district serves 85,000 customers in unincorporated Midway City and parts of Westminster and Garden Grove.