Teamsters Tell Waste Management: Stop Aggressive Talk, Send Goon Squad Packing

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Mar 26, 2010, 06:58 ET

Workers Want a Fair Contract, Communities Want Professional Trash Service

SEATTLE, March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Over the last two weeks, area garbage drivers employed by Waste Management (WMI) have expressed concern that unmarked rental cars are chasing them throughout the county. Who is inside the rental cars and why are they tailing garbage trucks?

"This is a sure sign that Waste Management has imported hundreds of out-of-state goon squad members from its infamous Green Team," said Bob Morales, Director of the Teamsters Waste Division. "It looks exactly like what the company did before they locked out 500 Oakland sanitation workers for nearly a month, while trash pilled up on the streets."

The Green Team is a notorious unit inside WMI comprised of supervisors and other employees from across the country, specially chosen and trained for aggressive and intimidating behavior.

"These goons are trained to intimidate workers and give the false appearance that Waste Management is fulfilling its trash collection obligations to local governments so it can avoid lawsuits," Morales said.

In the 2007 Oakland lockout, a locked-out employee was struck by a WMI truck driven by a Green Team member.

"There is no reason to lock out these workers," said Rick Hicks, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 174. "These are people from our community, who grew up here and who are doing an incredibly dangerous job that helps all of us."

In the past two years, the state has cited WMI six times for general safety violations. These citations, in addition to claims by workers that WMI's controversial safety program is a sophisticated way to keep workers from reporting injuries and accidents, have union negotiators wanting to address better protections for workers hurt on the job and compensation for the families of workers killed or maimed on the job.

"Waste Management's statements about outrageously high pay for local sanitation workers are just not true," Hicks said. "There is nothing wrong with a sanitation worker getting paid a decent wage to do an extremely dangerous job. This is a typical ploy by Waste Management to confuse public opinion before they lock out workers."

The pay proposals presented to WMI are moderate and identical to the wages already contained in the Teamsters contract with CleanScapes. CleanScapes is a local environmentally friendly sanitation company dedicated to 'cleaner, safer, and more sustainable cities.' CleanScapes and Waste Management have each been awarded with half of the City of Seattle's sanitation contracts.

"I do not understand why Waste Management, which made $994 million in profit last year can't afford to pay the same wages that a small locally-owned startup company is paying," said Jeff Anderson, a commercial rolloff driver at WMI.

For more information on the Waste Management Oakland Lockout visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-UHUjG8LMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqigp5y412E&feature=related

SOURCE Teamsters Local Unions 117 and 174