Teamsters to Battle Fall River’s Move to Privatize Trash Collection
Sunday, May 01, 2016
The Teamsters labor union is challenging the City of Fall River’s recent decision to privatize trash collection, saying the city didn’t bargain in good faith — and is taking the fight to the state labor relations board in Massachusetts.
Fall River’s new Mayor, twenty-four year old Jasiel Correia lauded the move in a recent Facebook post touting his accomplishments in his first year in office —but the Teamsters Local 251, who represents the city’s trash collectors, said that it is taking the fight to the Massachusetts Labor Relations Board in a meeting scheduled for May 23.
“The issue that saw us get to where we are is the procedure broke down down,” said Dave Robbins of the Teamsters Local 251. “We’ve had a contract that expired with the city in June 2015. The city sent a letter on February 17 of this year demanding that we enter into privatization — we said we would bargain in the context of contract bargaining, as we wanted to talk about contract issues.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“An arbitrary deadline was set up on March 25. On March 30 we were asked to give up seniority rights, which is the backbone of the union,” said Robbins, who noted that at least twenty-five union jobs could be impacted.
On Tuesday April 12, Correia announced the city would be entering into ten year contract with EZ Disposal Service, to save the city reportedly more than $8 million over 10 years.
Dueling Sides
In his Facebook post on April 16, Correia touted the savings from his proposed privatization.
"We announced one of the biggest moves in city history for public-private partnership for trash collection. We selected EZ Disposal. You won't see a change in services, you'll see an increase of services. Your trash will be picked up as normal on time and we're excited. This contract over ten years will save taxpayers at least $9 million, with savings in healthcare, and pension liability,” said Correia.
Robbins said the “surface bargaining” the city undertook would be grounds to challenge the privatization, slated to talk place at the start of the new fiscal year.
“We gave them more days to meet,” said Robbins. “They got back to us and said they were going to declare an impasse.”
Robbins said previous reports in the press that the union was divided on the issue are not true.
“We're in this battle together and we're working to present a united front,” said Robbins.
