Threat of garbage strike intensifies

Garbage collection for more than 1 million customers could be disrupted as early as Thursday in King and Snohomish counties as unions representing workers and the garbage companies failed for another day to agree on a new contract.

The contract between Teamsters Local 174, which represents more than 500 garbage workers, and their employers, Waste Management and Allied Waste, expires at midnight Wednesday.

Both companies have said they will bring in replacement workers to cover the routes of the union trash haulers. The contracts with cities and counties require that garbage, recycling and yard waste be picked up regardless of a strike.

Waste Management took out ads Tuesday for replacement workers in several regional newspapers, including The Seattle Times, The Tacoma News Tribune and The Everett Herald, along with Craigslist. The company said it was hiring residential and commercial drivers, technicians, transfer-station drivers and heavy-equipment operators.

Waste Management serves about half of Seattle homes and numerous communities in King and Snohomish counties. Allied Waste serves about 100,000 residential customers in King County and 23,000 in Snohomish County.

Waste Management spokeswoman Jackie Lang said the company had received about 600 applications by the end of the day and expected more overnight.

Union officials were sharply critical of Waste Management's ads for new workers.

"Waste Management would rather exploit the local labor market by offering temporary jobs for strikebreakers than support and protect their trained work force," said Paul Zilly, spokesman for Teamsters Local 117, which primarily represents recycle and yard-waste haulers.

While members of Teamsters Local 117 have said they won't cross picket lines, they may still operate their routes, Zilly said, if managers drive the trucks out of and into collection stations. The majority of Local 117 drivers are under contract with Waste Management and Allied Waste until 2012, he said.

Hundreds of unionized garbage collectors voted Sunday to authorize a strike if their contract dispute isn't settled. A federal mediator was brought into the negotiations Monday.

Waste Management has said its five-year contract proposal would bring median salaries to almost $71,000 per year. Additionally, it says it pays 100 percent of employee pension contributions, which under the proposal would be worth $15,205 per year, and almost $17,000 in health-care benefits. Its total annual median salary and benefits package would be worth $104,180 per employee, Lang said.

But Teamsters spokesman Michael Gonzales said the company's estimate of median wages is based on mandatory overtime, which he said shouldn't be included in the base pay. He said the company is offering no increase in wages the first year while asking employees to increase their contribution to health care from $30 per month to $80 per month.

"Where is this $100,000 package that they are promising? Our guys would be lined up down the block to sign that contract. We don't have that on the table," Gonzales said.

Allied Waste is negotiating separately and will not disclose terms of its contract offer, said spokeswoman Peg Mulloy.

Both sides will resume negotiations Wednesday.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com