25-08 - Flipbook - Page 19
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disputes, there's plenty of workers still holding out.
Waste strikes hit a nerve
In the ocean-side city of Gloucester, about an hour north of Boston, the sharp smell of salt
air has been undercut by the lingering funk of rotting garbage, and squawking seagulls
circle overhead.
"I mean, if this were going on in, you know, November, December, it wouldn't be as
noticeable, the smell of it," Greg Vargas, the city's mayor, told the BBC.
It's become a major nuisance for the mayor, who has joined forces with five other towns to
sue Republic over breach of contract.
"When they were talking to us before the strike, they said, don't worry about it, we're a
national company. We'll have people in place and take care of everything," he recalled.
"That has not been delivered on since day one."
Meanwhile, Republic Services has sued the Teamsters, accusing it of engaging in illegal
behaviour.
"The Teamsters' pattern of criminal behaviour -including truck theft, tire slashing, spraying
chemicals on drivers and hate speech - demonstrates the union's preference for chaos
over compromise," the company said in a statement.
The union denies the accusations.
Garbage collectors in major cities like New York and Philadelphia are public employees,
but smaller metropolises have long outsourced to private companies, like Republic.
Founded over 40 years ago, the company took in $16bn in revenue in 2024, and frequently
appears on the Fortune 500 list.
At the heart of its success story has been a promise to customers: we'll whisk your trash out
of sight, and you won't have to think about it.
But when the trash piles up, things can get ugly.
"We have these negative associations with waste, particularly smellier waste, that is
associated with poverty and disease 3 other things we don't like to see or think about," said
Sarah A Moore, a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison.
That can give striking workers leverage, she said.
In Philadelphia, where a separate garbage strike made headlines this summer, it took just
eight days for the city to reach a deal with public workers, after trash overflowed into the
streets and residents complained of rats running amok.
In Lacey, Washington, which is outside the capital city of Olympia, the union representing
the workers there reached an agreement with Republic Services after about a week,
ending the strike. It has also reached a deal with the union in Manteca, California, near
Stockton.
But bedraggled residents who spoke to the BBC near Lacey last week said they felt the
