Campaign to unionize trash haulers defeated
A yearlong campaign to unionize workers at the Woburn garage of
Teamsters officials say the company's efforts focused on Latino workers, who make up about a third of the workers in Woburn. According to the union and state Senator Jarrett Barrios, a Democrat from Cambridge, the workers were told they would lose their jobs or green cards if they voted in favor of the union. The company denies the allegations.
According to Joe Morril, a truck driver in the Woburn fleet, the company's pressure managed to sway the votes of some workers who had pledged long before to support the union.
"They were right on board until the morning of that board meeting," said Morril, referring to a meeting held two days before the April 1 election. In the election, 114 drivers and trash collectors voted, and the union lost by 14 votes.
Jerry Godin, a Teamsters business agent in Boston, said the union has asked workers to file affidavits with the National Labor Relations Board alleging illegal tactics, but that the workers were afraid of possible repercussions. Until someone comes forward, he said, the union cannot pursue a case.
The workers "know what would happen" if they reported the company to the government, Godin said.
Andrew Saunders, a Waste Management labor relations specialist who spoke to the workers, said the company had "not threatened anybody's citizenship status or their job." Part of his reason for going to the Woburn site was to make sure that no company worker would sabotage the election, he said in an interview.
Two days before the election, the company sent Saunders and three other employees, including one who speaks Spanish, to Woburn to hold four meetings describing the benefits offered by Waste Management, and to provide a financial report of the Teamsters that indicated the union was having financial difficulties.
Waste Management of Western Massachusetts is part of Waste Management Inc., the country's largest trash-hauling company. The Woburn facility serves Lexington, Wilmington, Woburn, Reading, Lynn, Chelsea, and a number of commercial clients.
The Western Massachusetts unit has six hauling companies, with only the garage in Somerville unionized. Trash haulers and drivers in Somerville earn salary and benefits totaling $24 an hour, the Teamsters say. That compares with a package of $21.50 an hour in Woburn, according to Waste Management.
But Godin said Waste Management is not paying all its workers in Woburn that rate and is once again violating the state prevailing wage law that guarantees workers a certain standard pay. He said the state attorney general's office investigated this matter a few years ago.
"We have been tracking them for the last eight to 10 months," said Godin, adding that some of the workers are getting paid $4 an hour less then they should and that the union has at some 500 pay stubs from workers to prove it.
In 2002, Waste Management Inc. paid a $1.6 million settlement with the attorney general's office for violating the prevailing wage law. The money went to hundreds of workers in Massachusetts in back wages.
At the time of the settlement, the company said the payouts represented "a few pennies an hour in additional compensation" to the affected workers. Saunders said the law is confusing, and that the findings were turned up in a routine audit by the state.
He added that no one has filed a similar complaint recently. "I'm pretty confident that the prevailing wage law is being followed to the letter," he said.
Godin said the Teamsters will hold elections at other Waste Management sites this year, but declined to say where. For the Woburn campaign, the union had flown in a Spanish-speaking activist to rally the workers. Union officials also thought Latinos might have felt encouraged when Barrios got involved.
Barrios said he heard about the election from one of his constituents, a Chelsea painter from another union. The weekend before the election, he met with about 10 workers who voiced a range of concerns. "The large majority indicated that they wanted the union in the first place," said Barrios. "I was told by those employees that people would be deported, lose their jobs."
Barrios and Jose Jimenez, a truck driver who supported having a union, tried to attend the company meeting at 4:45 a.m. two days before the election. Jimenez was allowed in; Saunders said he told Barrios that he could not attend the meeting, but invited him to stay and talk to him about his concerns. Saunders said Barrios declined because he had other commitments.
When asked about this, Barrios said Saunders never offered to talk. Barrios added that he would have had plenty of time to talk if he had been asked. "I don't usually schedule meetings at 5:10 in the morning," he said.
Barrios said he would join in the Teamsters' effort to win other union elections in Massachusetts with Waste Management because "the tactics they chose I find to be offensive and anti-American."
