Fired Garbage Truck Drivers Rehired After Walkout : Labor: Waste Management reprimands the three drivers. Trash pickup, delayed by the five-hour strike Thursday, resumes in five cities.

Three trash truck drivers whose firings touched off a five-hour wildcat walkout by 100 co-workers at a trash collection company Thursday have been rehired, a company spokeswoman said Friday.

“Management reviewed the cases of the employees who were terminated and decided they would be reprimanded and be rehired,” said Michele Blair, spokeswoman for Waste Management Inc. of Orange County. “Essentially, the fired drivers got warnings.”

The brief wildcat strike on Thursday delayed garbage pickups in five cities--Irvine, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Laguna Beach and Lake Forest--as well as some unincorporated parts of the county.

The drivers, who are not organized in a labor union, said they staged the job action to protest their anger over the firings earlier this week of the three co-workers, who were accused by management of “taking unauthorized breaks on company time.” They were not identified by company officials.

Drivers complained that the firings were unwarranted and came during the introduction of harsh new rules for drivers.

One driver, who demanded anonymity because of fear of job security, has said new company administrators had been pushing drivers to increase the amount of trash they collect by adding more stops to their routes.

Also, management had reduced annual vacations and had threatened harsher discipline for relatively small infractions, the drivers said.

On Friday, city officials at three of the five cities--Mission Viejo, Lake Forest and Irvine--reported that there were no complaints about problems with garbage pickups. Officials at Laguna Beach and Laguna Hills could not be reached for comment.

“We have not had any complaints,” said Cindy Asher, an Irvine waste management coordinator.

Blair said that after the walkout, drivers returned to their trucks and resumed trash pickups Thursday afternoon. Waste Management officials also brought in drivers from the Inland Empire.

Despite the lost time, trash truck drivers “got almost everything done on Thursday,” Blair said.