Recycling, yard waste workers threatening strike that would impact thousands of customers

Your recycling and yard waste could soon start piling up as a threat to strike looms.

Workers at Republic Services say they will walk off the job if the company doesn’t give them equal pay.

If an agreement can’t be reached with Republic Services, 130 recycling and yard work drivers voted unanimously to authorize a strike.

Thousands of customers would be affected, many of them on the Eastside.

These workers say they want the same pay as garbage workers. They say they do the same job, but they are paid less.

Now they are threatening to stop working and leave these trucks idle if the company doesn’t agree to pay them equally.

“I mean, we do all the work,” Margarito Gonzalez said. “If we don’t pick up a can, nobody gets paid. Is that what the company wants?”

Gonzalez has worked nearly 50 years in the sanitation business; nearly two-thirds of that time for Republic Services. His commercial pickup route is from downtown Seattle to points north and west.

He says his customers know him.

“Oh, absolutely,” Gonzalez said. “I have a good relationship with our customers.”

But in 2009 when Republic lost a contract, he was forced to switch from collecting garbage to recycling and took a pay cut.

He and his fellow drivers voted to strike if they don’t get what he describes as a decent contract.

“One that is in par with the contract that the other workers in the industry have who are doing the same work as we are,” Gonzalez said.

It was a much happier story for rival Waste Management. Right after Republic’s unanimous strike authorization vote, the Waste Management recycle and yard waste workers voted unanimously to accept a new five-year contract.

“Waste Management came ready to bargain to the table,” said Brent Barrett, Teamsters Local 117 shop steward. “They came ready.”

The Teamsters say Republic Services workers’ strike authorization vote comes down to unequal pay.

“We’re talking hundreds (of dollars) of value every month,” said John Scearcy, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 117.

He says the workers believe they should be paid equitably.

“I don’t believe that two people should be working side-by-side, with the same qualifications, expectations on the job and both getting paid less than each other,” Scearcy said.

For its part, Republic Services says it respects its workers’ right to collective bargaining, and they will continue to negotiate in good faith.

The talks between the two sides continue through Tuesday, so any strike would happen if no agreement is reached by then.

By Deborah Horne, KIRO 7 News