Striking waste management workers have reached a deal with their employer Republic Services to end a two-and-a-half month work stoppage.
The agreement on a five-year contract between the company and workers with the Teamsters Local 25 union was announced Friday, with regular trash service for the dozens of affected communities expected to resume Monday.
“During the strike we never lost hope that we would reach an agreement that would benefit our members,” Local 25 president Tom Mari said in a statement. “We are now ready to return to work and provide the best service possible to Republic’s customers.”
The strike forced Republic Services to rely on replacement workers, and communities under contract with the company to alter their pickup schedules and in some cases develop workarounds where residents took care of their own garbage and recycling needs. Some municipalities received complaints of trash piling up, including at schools.
The agreement concludes months of tense negotiations, with workers pushed for higher pay and stronger benefits.
“We look forward to our employees returning to work on Monday and quickly resuming normal operations,” said Kurt Lavery, Market Vice President for Republic Services. “We will work tirelessly to restore our customers’ trust.”
That trust could be hard to rebuild, with local leaders complaining for months about the strike’s impact on their communities. Cities like Malden developed options where residents could drop off their trash and recycling at local collection points, but leaders say the situation was far from ideal.
“Residents, by the end of summer, were fed up,” said Karen Colón Hayes, an at-large city councilor in Malden, one of more than a dozen cities and towns that rely on Republic Services for trash and recycling. “That’s why I was overjoyed when I saw it [the strike] had come to an end.”
