The sanitation strike that crippled Chula Vista for nearly a month is over, but not without consequences to the city and its provider Republic Services.
This comes after union workers accepted the terms offered by Republic on Monday, returning to work Tuesday morning. The only difference between Monday’s agreement and the latest agreement voted down by the Teamsters was a $1,000 bonus to come back to work.
On Tuesday, the city council unanimously voted to ratify the Jan. 12 proclamation of a public health emergency and allowing the city manager to take whatever steps deemed necessary to begin utilizing city employees and outside contractors to clean up the piles of trash throughout the city. Although the proclamation was ratified at special council meeting on Jan. 15, City Attorney Glen Googins said that it had to be ratified at a regular council meeting, the state of emergency still exists, and it continues to give the city manager discretion on utilizing city services until all trash collection is completed and Republic can resume collection as indicated in the contract with the city.
Environmental Services Director Manuel Medrano said city teams and contractors are collecting trash in multi-family complexes with assistance from Work for Hope and Alpha Project crews assisting, is continuing to coordinate with Republic Services, and the city established a phone number and email for residents and property owners to report overflow.
Medrano said to date, city staff and contractors cleaned 213-plus multi-family properties deploying up to eight contractors, more than 30 staff and contractor, and collected 134,060 pounds of trash.
Republic Services Director of Operations Darrell Reno said he greeted employees back to work Tuesday morning and that they seemed in “good spirits.”
“From a relationship perspective we are working towards a common goal,” he said. “And what has happened, has happened. It is time to clean up the city and time to move in the right direction.”
Mayor Mary Casillas Salas said that Reno’s comment “and what has happened, has happened” disturbed her and reassured Reno that this was not over. Reno presented a timeline for specific trash collection dates, but Salas said that she would not announce it until Council had the dates confirmed in writing, which Reno said he would supply by the end of Wednesday.
“In all of the chaos that was created, the blame cannot be put on the strike,” she said.
“The blame has to be put on Republic for not acting in good faith with your partners, with the family you say your Teamsters are.”
Salas said when she looked at the final contract and what Republic put the workers through, this problem could have been settled much earlier.
“It is not what happened just happened, because it happened to the Teamsters, to the community, and the reputation to the city.
“The council members and I were left holding the bag,” she said. “I did not see Republic staff out in front of the cameras answering tough questions. I did not see a lot of communication as a consumer from Republic. When I met with your team at Republic a few weeks ago, certain commitments were made to me at that time that I thought I could rely on the word of Republic.”
Salas said without exception, Council is demanding credit be given to the community.
“Nobody should have to pay for services that were not provided,” she said. “We are going to demand compensation for every penny that we have spent in cleaning up the mess that was the responsibility of Republic. That is what the contract is about. That partnership was broken between the consumer, the city, and the workers you say that you care for.”
Council member Steve Padilla said this has been “beyond appalling” and that he was “deeply disconcerted” with Reno’s report.
“This is not going to be back to business as usual,” he said. “Those days are over. I think the most appalling thing for me was to see how little the delta was at the end that resulted in getting a contract…We are not jumping up and down that these workers got an extra 10 cents in their boot allowance and less than $5 in five years while your CEO is making $12 million. There is something about that grotesqueness. Our community suffered for a month. It is inexcusable.”
Padilla said he would like to hear how customers are going to be credited in writing.
“I am going to continue to push this council, and through our city manager and her team to look at the provisions for liquidated damages in the contract. There has been a tremendous loss of trust in this relationship. You guys blew a lot of good will.”
Council member Jill Galvez said that the city and council has put in much work to make the city better for its residents and that looking at the contract with the Teamsters, that Republic will not be able to attract the “best and brightest” workforce in the future, which in turn, will hurt the city. She said the reports of broken down trucks from Republic shows that it is not investing in its equipment, workers are working overtime regularly due to not investing in workers.
“Their working conditions are terrible,” she said. “Their trucks are overloaded. They are not safe driving through our streets. I feel you are being driven by Wall Street and that you are sucking all the profit and all the investment out of our city, out of the pockets of Chula Vistans, and into the pockets of your shareholders. That is absolutely unacceptable.”
Salas said the final letter she saw sent to the members of the Teamsters was “beyond threatening,” by saying that if the Teamsters did not come back to the table, Republic would “lock them out” and hire all new workers.
“It was really a coercion for them to come back and accept these terms,” she said.
Reno said Republic would continue to use the Blue Crews used during the strike and is in talks with the union to create a MOU to utilize the Blue Crews until its services returned to normal operations. He said he expects services to be back to normal by Jan. 29.
