Politics & Government

Garbage Strike Spreads From Union City To Fremont

Cities say no Thursday or Friday pickup due to labor dispute between the Teamsters and Allied Waste Services/Republic Services. What is it about?

 

Updated: 2:15 pm

Fremont will be without garbage, recycling, and yardwaste pickup today, Thursday, and tomorrow, Friday, April 5 due to a labor dispute, according to a notice posted on the city web site this morning.

Find out what's happening in Fremontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On Wednesday, Union City officials notified their residents of a two-day garbage service interruption owing to an unspecified labor dispute. (Editor's note: Union City residents will have their recycling and green waste carts picked up today and tomorrow, because Allied does not service them. Apartments will not be serviced, however, according to a Union City official.)

Both cities have their trash collected by Allied Waste Services/Republic Services, the nation's second largest garbage company.

Find out what's happening in Fremontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Garbage workers in both cities are represented by the Teamsters, which has about 1.3 million members nationwide.

What's the dispute?

Patch called and emailed Allied/Republic and the Teamsters many times Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning to ask just that.

Most of those calls went unanswered.

But the garbage company and the union are locked in a labor struggle in Youngstown, Ohio, according to a statement from the Teamsters.

A Teamsters official in Washington, D.C., said the Fremont strike is in solidarity with the Youngstown action.

The official did not mention whether the Teamster action Union City was also a sympathy strike or a local dispute.

Teamsters garbage workers in Pacifica, Fairfield, Daly City and Half Moon Bay are also striking against Allied Waste/Republic Services, the official said.

Newark will start getting garbage service from Allied Waste/Republic services in June, a city spokesperson said.

But it is still being served by Waste Management, the nation's largest garbage hauler, so Newark is not affected by these walkouts.

Allied Waste/Republic Services issued a statement mid-morning Thursday:

"Due to an unresolved labor issue in another part of the country, some of our local union employees exercised their right to picket to show their support. This is not an issue connected with our local area and we don’t anticipate that this sympathy strike will last long or have a significant impact on our ability to serve customers."

Thursday afternoon, the Teamsters issued a statement which said in part:

"Republic/Allied Waste’s [NYSE: RSG] workers in Daly City, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Fremont and Fairfield, Calif., refused to cross picket lines today in support of sanitation workers on strike at the company’s Carbon Limestone landfill in Youngstown, Ohio . . . The landfill workers in Half Moon Bay, the sanitation drivers in Daly City and the transfer station workers in Pacifica who are honoring the picket lines of their striking colleagues are members of Teamsters Local 350 in Daly City. The sanitation drivers in Fremont and Fairfield who are honoring the picket lines are members of Teamsters Local 70 and Local 315. The workers have the legal right to refuse to cross picket lines in support of striking workers from other Republic/Allied Waste locations."

Meanwhile, the alert from the city of Fremont advises residents of that city with Thursday and Friday service not to place their bins out front.

Next week they will be allowed to put out extra trash bags and recyclables to make up for the missed pickup, the city says.


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