Good step: Back to work
Published 5:31 pm Thursday, April 22, 2010
When the garbage isn’t being picked up, the only ones deserving sympathy are the 1 million customers in King and Snohomish counties who were told to turn those bins back around and double up on trash until next week.
Which is perhaps why the trash haulers decided to go back to work without a contract exactly one day after going on strike.
To recap: Waste Management and members of Teamsters Local 174 couldn’t agree on a contract and drivers went on strike Wednesday morning. By Thursday afternoon, they had agreed to go back to work and back to the bargaining table.
Thank goodness.
Because it’s frustrating for customers and observers alike to see the situation escalate from contract talks to walking off the job in a blink of an eye (OK, or in a blink a media sound bite, or paid ad) as if no other options existed.
Because frankly, it’s simply nuts to call a strike in this economy, with area unemployment sitting at 10 percent. Appearances do matter. So does common sense, which seems to have been hauled off somewhere and awaits recycling.
Like the proverbial sausage-making, contract negotiations are not pretty. Outsiders aren’t privy to the details, making it difficult to evaluate if the sides are playing fairly and respectfully with each other, and with those they represent.
We do know union members were not given a chance to vote on the last offer before leaders called a strike. Maybe the majority agreed with that move, but many must wonder if there wasn’t a less drastic way back to the bargaining table.
Waste Management has widely broadcast its offer: A pay increase over five years, bringing the current $55,000 a year to $60,500 by 2015. Medical benefits and generous pension contributions make the contract worth $109,553 (per employee) annually, the company says.
Union members are being asked to increase monthly medical payments from $30 to $50, with a 8 percent cap on health-care cost increases, according to news reports.
To most people, including the majority of Snohomish County citizens who make less than $55,000 a year — many with jobs as difficult as the garbage haulers — the offer sounds more than reasonable.
For those without health insurance, or inadequate coverage, any cap on health-care cost increases (what a concept!) would alone make the contract worth ratifying. Is that really the sticking point?
Reasonable people agree: Back to the table and back to work, immediately.
