Waste Management is waging blatant class war on the garbage workers and working people of Alameda County in the east Bay Area
Submitted on Mon, 07/16/2007 - 4:49am
By Oscar the Grouch (with apologies to the Children's Television Workshop)
The following editorial is the opinion of the author, alone.
The following article, featured in a recent issue of Socialist Worker makes it clear that Waste Management planned to bust the union from the get-go.
Worse still, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Waste Management is ordering scab drivers to pick up trash in rich neighborhoods while ignoring the residents in poor and working class neighborhoods, subjecting the working class to disease and pestilence.
The City of Oakland's lawsuit ordering Waste Management to end the lockout is weak and ineffectual.
This is nothing less than an all out, frontal attack on working people of the East Bay area and the only way to counter that attack is to respond in kind. If it's class war that they want, it's class war they should get:
Here's my list of suggested responses to waste management's class warfare against Alameda County:
For residents affected by the lockout and for those in solidarity with the locked out workers in locations not affected by the lockout:
- (1) Withhold all payments to Waste Management. Return all bills without payments and instead staple a copy of this article to your invoice.
- (2) Contact the cities affected by the lockout, including Oakland, and demand that they use eminent domain to municipalize curbside recycling, garbage hauling and processing operations currently performed by Waste Management.
- (3) Spread this campaign to other municipalities where Waste Management performs these operations.
- (4) Initiate public recall campaigns against any politician that refuses to begin eminent domain proceedings against Waste Management.
- (5) Organize caravans that deliver garbage to the corporate offices of Waste Management; once there, hold public rallies calling for an end to the lockout.
- (6) Conduct mass pickets, composed of locked out workers, union supporters, and residents of the affected areas, of Waste Management offices in Oakland (on 98th avenue) until Waste Management agrees to end the lockout and accept the Union's contract proposals.
From the "left" media:
- Teamsters Denounce Waste Management's Decision to Lock Out 500 Workers
- As garbage ripens, Waste Management locks out 500 workers
- Sanitation Workers Struggle in the East Bay
Additional information from the San Francisco Chronicle:
- July 2, 2007 - Lockout by Oakland garbage company Replacement workers hired to pick up trash
- July 4, 2007 - Delays likely in picking up garbage
- July 6, 2007 - Day 4 in stinky garbage standoff; Trash company and Teamsters in contract dispute
- July 10, 2007 - No new talks; stinking garbage is getting riper
- July 11, 2007 - Bulky pickup also a casualty of lockout; Waste Management says it's halted special collections during labor dispute
- July 11, 2007 - As garbage piles up, vermin will multiply
- July 12, 2007 - Oakland to sue trash collector; City to seek order requiring pickup
- July 13, 2007 - City sues garbage hauler seeking pick-up; Mayor wants company to allow union drivers back to work during a cooling-off period
- July 13, 2007 - Ways to win back our sanitation engineers
- July 14, 2007 - Fed-up residents are hauling their own garbage
For more information see teamsters.org