Striking Haulers, Trash Companies Meet
A federal mediator held exploratory talks Wednesday with striking trash haulers and three of four waste-hauling companies in an attempt to end a 3-day-old walkout that has left tons of refuse piling up across much of Orange County.
Both sides characterized the talks as preliminary, saying they were sounding each other out on whether reopening formal negotiations could resolve the dispute, which has left 700 to 800 drivers, mechanics and maintenance workers walking picket lines.
“The goal is to maintain some open lines of communications so we can get the parties to agree to a settlement as soon as possible,” said Juan Carlos Gonzalez, the federal mediator who helped orchestrate a tentative contract that members of Teamsters Local 396 rejected last week.
Workers went on strike Monday against four companies--CR&R;, Rainbow Disposal, Taormina Industries and Waste Management Inc. The action has halted or delayed service for about 400,000 residential households and 35,000 commercial and industrial customers in about 20 Orange County cities and unincorporated areas. Also affected is Chino Hills in San Bernardino County. In cities otherwise unaffected by the strike, some residents whose apartment complexes or associations are served by one of the four companies also found themselves without service.
The walkout began at 4 a.m. Monday, three days after union members--against the advice of their leadership--voted down a contract that would have increased their pay from $12.90 an hour to $16 an hour over five years, with a $1-an-hour raise in the first year. Some drivers say they deserve an initial raise of $6 an hour in the first year, plus subsequent increases.
It was unclear late Wednesday whether the strike would spread to six South County cities served by Solag Disposal Inc., whose drivers voted earlier to join the walkout. Officials of the company, a subsidiary of CR&R;, signed an agreement proposed by Local 396 guaranteeing Solag’s 85 workers any contract improvements resulting from the strike.
“It’s the best of both worlds,” said David Fahrion, a CR&R; vice president. “They can continue to work and get whatever the strikers get. This provides stability for us and our employees. I hope it works.”
Union officials could not be reached late Wednesday for comment.
At CR&R;’s Stanton office, striking workers also delayed a planned revote on the rejected contract, deciding instead to study the offer Wednesday before voting again.
Meanwhile, an apparent sickout against Waste Management in Irvine and other South County cities entered its second day.
Company officials said that 27 out of 123 workers called in sick despite pleas by union leaders to stay on the job. On Tuesday, 47 workers did not report to work at the firm’s Irvine station, which serves five cities. Normally, five or six employees call in sick each workday, company officials said.
The federal mediator convened one meeting at 4 p.m. Wednesday among officials from CR&R;, Taormina Industries and the union’s bargaining committee. A second meeting was set for 7 p.m. involving Rainbow Disposal and union negotiators. All met at Local 396’s offices in Covina.
Waste Management is scheduled for a similar meeting this afternoon.
Union officials said that the companies must offer higher wages than contained in their last offer for contract talks to resume. “The guys want more money,” said Danny Bruno, secretary treasurer of Local 396 and a union negotiator.
However, company representatives said the increase some union members have been discussing--$6 an hour the first year with additional raises after that--is unrealistic. Executives from three of the four firms said they are unwilling to budge from the rejected contract, which they consider to be their “last and final offer.”
“I’m not at all optimistic that this will be resolved soon,” said Bob Coyle, a vice president at Waste Management. He said it would be difficult for the company to improve on its last offer, adding, “The $6-an-hour figure is a crazy number.”
Waste Management might have been more generous, Coyle said, had the strike not cost the firm more than $500,000 so far for security, travel, food and lodging for replacement drivers the company has brought in.
Taormina and Waste Management have withdrawn the final offer, meaning negotiations, if and when they resume, might have to start from scratch with those firms. Ron Shenkman, the vice president of Rainbow Disposal, said striking employees from his firm had until midnight Wednesday to accept the offer. CR&R; has not withdrawn the proposed contract.
While company and union negotiators planned for the series of meetings, uncollected garbage began to pile up at roughly 40% of Orange County’s 935,000 households.
Figures show that since the walkout began the volume of trash arriving at the county’s landfills has dropped nearly 30% from a week ago Tuesday, a day when the three dumps received 13,173 tons of refuse.
Company officials insisted they were trying to restore service, but the efforts were slow to develop. Using supervisors and nonunion drivers from other locales, the firms tried to make pickups at restaurants, markets and other high producers of garbage to mitigate health concerns. Waste Management is a national company that can draw from other divisions. Taormina Industries is owned by Republic Services, another national enterprise with substantial resources.
Officials from the four companies said they have restored roughly 40% to 50% of their industrial and commercial service since the strike began. Most residential pickups have been suspended until next week, except in cities served by Taormina: Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Placentia, Villa Park and Yorba Linda.
Tom Vogt, president of that company, said Taomina dispatched a handful of trucks into neighborhoods Wednesday. But he said it would take the firm three to four days to make a substantial dent in the uncollected trash.
“We have a business to run and customers to take care of,” Vogt said. “I hope the talks are fruitful. These our our people out there. I don’t want to turn the strike into something more than it is--a work stoppage.”
But Vogt said the company is planning to advertise next week for “permanent replacements.”
“They say, ‘We’re going to replace you because you won’t accept the contract we’re trying to push down your throats,’ ” Bruno said. “They’re saying to the haulers, ‘We’re just going to throw you out with the trash.’ ”
The tension between strikers and management drivers flared at Rainbow Disposal in Huntington Beach, where more than 200 employees in blue work clothes picketed throughout the day. At one point, a supervisor jumped from a trash truck and threatened a striker.
Picketers also questioned the driver of a Tucson-based truck that was hauling trash. They wanted to see whether he was a union member.
Some of the strikers followed a red pickup truck after it made about seven stops to unload. They said it was picking up refuse at beach-area hotels.
“We’re the ones who do all the work and they won’t be able to get all trash that way,” said Steve Fragoza, a striker who has driven a front-loading dump truck for 11 years. “They won’t be able to do that forever.”
Janice V. Goss, interim director of the county’s waste management agency, said Wednesday that her agency is monitoring the strike but cannot intervene unless the walkout poses a health and safety threat to the public.
“Any employee relations issue is between the trash hauling companies and their employees. The county is strike-neutral,” Goss said. “Our goal is to keep the landfills open and to keep the waste from piling up, and our interest is public health and safety.”
Goss said there were delays Wednesday at two of the three landfills in the county, at the county’s Prima Deshecha landfill in San Juan Capistrano and at Olinda Alpha in Brea.
Trash truck drivers came to the gates at both landfills but then honored the picket lines. They pulled off to the side of the road. Trash company supervisors then hopped aboard to drive them into the dump station.
It has been two decades since the county experienced a trash strike of this scale, and for many, including members of the Board of Supervisors, this is new ground. Goss and her staff are briefing top county officials and the staff of board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad.
“I think we have good people doing the negotiations,” Coad said. “But I think we want a fair solution that is equitable to the trash collectors and the companies.”
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Times staff writers Evan Halper, Jerry Hicks and David Reyes contributed to this report.
