Atlanta-based workers at Republic Services have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if negotiations do not produce a new contract by the end of July.
In voting Sunday, 96% of the workers casting a ballot gave union negotiators power to call a strike if they cannot reach a deal with management at the Phoenix, Arizona-based company, according to representatives of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta, which represents the 180 workers.
Phone and email messages to Republic Services were not returned.
Last year, the company had revenues of more than $13.5 billion and net income of about $1.3 billion. It is the second-largest waste-management company, with more than 30,000 workers elsewhere in the country, many of them also represented by Teamsters.
With negotiations planned for three days this week, then again during the last week of the month, the most contentious issues have been wages, time off and healthcare payments, according to Chuck Stiles, director of the union’s solid waste and recycling division.
In the 5-year contract about to expire, pay for haulers has been based on various incentives, but the company wants to switch workers to a straight per-hour system, he said.
The company’s current proposals would mean significant pay cuts for some workers, Stiles said. “They are low-balling us on wages. This is nothing but corporate greed.”
Atlanta-area workers struck Republic twice briefly in the past decade, in 2013 and 2018, actions sparked by what the union said were company violations of federal labor laws.
The union is again charging Republic with an unfair labor practice, alleging that some Republic managers have pulled workers aside to argue against a strike.
A work stoppage in Atlanta could mean disruption at a number of large institutions where Republic workers do the trash-hauling, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, several hospitals and gas station chains. They include dispatchers, helpers and mechanics, Stiles said.
Although Georgia law puts unions at something of a disadvantage, the Republic vote comes amidst several other union-related actions, two of them involving the state’s high-profile film industry. The writer’s union has been on strike for several months, while SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, may be days away from joining them.
The contract with Republic is also expiring the same day as the contract between Sandy Springs-based UPS and about 330,000 workers nationally, who are also represented by the Teamsters.
“We are just seeing so much worker action right now,” Stiles said. “There is just something in the air.”
