(From the diaries - MissLaura)
Life in sunny Los Angeles is about to get smelly. At 3 a.m. last Friday about 450 Teamsters made the decision-of-last-resort to go out on strike against Waste Management Inc., the No. 1 private trash company in the U.S.
The main issue is wages. This mostly Latino group of workers makes up to $9 per hour less than other (whiter) Waste Mangement employees in other major cities across the U.S. and as much as $6 per hour less than municipal workers doing similar work in the Los Angeles region.
Between employing strikebreakers and hiring replacement workers this company, which earned more than a billion dollars in profits last year could easily close this gaping and obviously racist disparity in wages.
But this diary is going to be more than a rant against this company that is profiting from your tax dollars by taking money from working families, we're asking you -- especially those of you who live in Southern California -- to get involved. Follow me below the flip to find out how.
UPDATES:
November 1 - STRIKE OVER: WORKERS VOTE TO RETURN
Ocotber 29 - WASTE MANAGEMENT HIRES PERMANENT REPLACEMENT WORKERS
October 29 - LA LABOR GROUPS OFFER SUPPORT
October 24 - TAKE ACTION: TELL WASTE MANAGEMENT TO END THE GARBAGE STRIKE NOW!
October 23 - UPDATE: GARBAGE STRIKE DAY 5 - TRASH STARTING TO PILE UP
October 21 - 2006 PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO FED CANDIDATES
October 21 - LIST OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS
October 21 - CORPORATE AND CONTACT INFO
I want you to walk the virtual strike line with me and support these workers as they fight for what they deserve. Subscribe to this diary. I or Teamsters on the picket line in Sun Valley, California will update you with the latest information and actions related to the strike.
We are currently discussing an email campaign or someway for all of you to participate. But right now we are simply calling on affected citizens to call their government officials and Waste Managment to pressure the company back to the bargaining table.
Another Kossak, Shockwave, is also organizing bloggers to help us. I encourage you all to work with him as well. This diary will offer the tools and information you need to keep things going.
Teamsters Local 396 has stated publicly that it is prepared to return to negotiations with Waste Management at any time.
"Our workers are only asking for comparable wages," said Ron Herrera, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 396. "This is a company that spends millions of dollars sending its strike-breaking 'Green Team' around the country. Waste Management spends more on this team than it would take to settle a contract that includes a respectable wage structure. These workers are tired of being victims of a corporate agenda."
Waste Management will be telling you that they are bringing in replacement workers and that service will not be interrupted, but that was not the case in Oakland last July, when Waste Management LOCKED OUT about 500 Teamsters there. Trash sat on the streets for weeks and only complaints from the public and from sypathetic politicians forced Waste Management to cave.
Waste Management will be telling the media and the nearly 225,000 residents whose trash is piling up that they have offered the Teamsters a good contract. According to the LA Times:
The company said the contract expired in September and that its latest offer included a 22.5% pay increase over five years, a 19% increase in the company's contribution to the workers' pension fund and a 21% increase in its contribution to the workers' health plan.
Now, a 22.5% pay raise sounds pretty good, until you realize that this raise will come over five years. That barely keeps up with inflation and does nothing to address the shortfall that this unit is experiencing when compared to workers doing the same job in the Waste Management system elsewhere.
Said one striker:
"I am out on this picket line because I am in a fight for my family's future," said Sylvester Anthony a 29-year employee at Waste Management. "Los Angeles is one of the most expensive places in the country to raise a family and I can barely make ends meet on the wages Waste Management provides. How am I going to explain to my son that I can't afford to pay for the college education he has worked so hard to earn?"
What else you can do
Walk the line. If you are in the area you can show your solidarity by joining the Teamsters on the picket line.
Write letters to the editor. Show your support in print and help us send the right message to the media. You can bet that the MSM will only lightly cover the issue. Watch their coverage, critiqe it and help us set the record straight.
Blog. Like other stories, this one will come and go in the MSM. We need your continued support -- especially local and state bloggers -- to keep this issue on the front burner.
Stay tuned. As I said, I will use this diary to keep you updated and to provide you with information on more ways you can help.
Below is some information about Waste Management that you can use in your letters and other means of support:
Union Busters
Waste Managment is the epitomy of the union-breaking corporate giant. Through gobbling up smaller competitors, ripping off investors, breaking environmental laws and taking advantage of low-income communities across the country it has built an empire of trash.
It continually tries to cull its Teamster drivers and and mechanics from its ranks. Today, the company employs about 48,000 people, including more than 8,000 Teamster members. But it has chosen to thumb its nose at those who raise questions about the firm's workers' rights record and its environmental violations.
- In July, WMI locked out over 500 Teamster members in Oakland, Calif., before being forced to back down by intense pressure from workers, politicians, and the community. The workers were not allowed to come to work as trash piled up across the region. WMI was trying to restrict their right to strike over safety and other violations.
- In Washington, D.C., Waste Management provoked a strike last year and then refused to negotiate. By prolonging the strike and encouraging pro-company workers, the company succeeded in convincing employees to file for a decertification vote that resulted in all the workers losing their union representation.
- During the past year (July 2006-June 2007), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited WMI for 47 current violations. WMI was found to be endangering their workers at many locations -- from the Bronx to rural E. Tawas, Michigan; from Minnesota to Missouri to North Carolina. And safety violations are up -- 34 percent higher than in 2005, when OSHA found 35 current violations.
Not so green
- In May, 2007, WMI was hit with $1.4 million in fines by the state of Pennsylvania for persistent air-quality violations at its landfill in Berks County, outside of Philadelphia.
- In March 2006, the Pennsylvania officials documented that 19,000 gallons of waste water overflowed into the Delaware River from WMI's wastewater treatment facility in Tullytown, PA. WMI did not notify the Lower Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority, which draws drinking water just south of the spill.
- In February, 2006, the Hawaii Department of Health levied $2.8 million in fines against the Waimanalo Gulch landfill in Honolulu, operated by WMI. The fine was levied after years of warning letters failed to elicit changes.
- Since February 2002, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has received over 800 complaints from residents concerning contaminants emitted from a Warren, OH landfill. In October 2005, 14 residents sued suing WMI and several other waste companies for endangering their health through hazardous trash fumes.
- In 2006 Tennessee citizens’ groups sought to block WMI’s permit application to expand a demolition waste landfill over a wetland that had been set aside to be "preserved in perpetuity."
- In March 2005, WMI was fined $128,359 for clean air violations at a landfill in Whitelaw, WI.
- Waste Management has paid more than $4 million in fines for failure to implement "nuisance minimization and control plan," failing to "perform site inspections to reduce potential for off-site odors" and numerous other violations at the Alliance landfill in Taylor, PA.
The color of money
- Waste Management makes more than $276,000 in revenues per employee. It is the richest and largest solid waste company in the United States.
- WMI is #170 on the Fortune 500 list.
- In 2006, CEO David P. Steiner earned $850,000 in salary, a bonus of $1.06 million and other annual compensation of nearly $4.3 million for a total annual compensation package of $6.2 million.
- President and COO Lawrence O'Donnell received a total annual compensation package of nearly $3.4 million.
- Regional senior vice presidents received between $1.61 million and $1.71 million.
- The average worker in Sun Valley California earns $17.80 per hour.
- In 1996 Federal Judge Odell Horton ordered WMI to pay $91.5 million to defrauded Tennessee businessmen. He summed up WMI’s pattern of corporate irresponsibility: "There was no reason for the Defendant to undertake such conduct other than greed."
- In one of the largest corporate scandals in American history, WMI perpetrated fraud when it used improper accounting measures to inflate profits by $1.3 billion between 1992 and 1997 to boost its stock price. WMI restated its earnings in the 4th Quarter 1998 by taking a $3.5 billion pre-tax charge. In the week following restatement, investors lost $359 million on the way to the eventual loss of $6 billion in the aftermath of the scandal.