Garbage hauler contract talks between Waste Management and Teamsters Local 174 are scheduled to continue Tuesday afternoon as the two sides try to reach a settlement and keep nearly 350 employees on the job in King and Snohomish counties, including the city of Kent.
“We will meet with the Union in good faith and will consider any issues that they raise,” said a Waste Management official in an e-mail Monday to Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke and the City Council.
The official also wrote that the company does not expect garbage haulers to strike on Tuesday.
Waste Management contracts with the city of Kent to serve about 2,100 commercial customers as well as nearly 270 apartments and condominiums.
The contract between Waste Management and the union expired March 31, but drivers have remained on the job.
Waste Management officials said Thursday they had delivered their final contract offer to the union after more than two months of negotiations, according to a Waste Management media release.
The union presented a counter proposal on Friday, but Waste Management officials said they had presented their final offer.
“This provides our hard working employees with a very generous compensation package,” said Jackie Lang, spokeswoman for Waste Management, in the media release. “We know this because we have received more than 1,500 job applications in the last three days.”
The company placed ads in several newspapers looking for workers in case the garbage haulers go on strike.
Rick Hicks, secretary-treasurer of Local 174, disagreed with Lang about the “generous” contract offer.
Hicks said in a union media release that Waste Management is “clinging to a substandard proposal that undermines good middle class jobs and continues to threaten the safety of our communities.”
The final offer presented by Waste Management includes a wage increase of $1 per hour in the first year from the current $26.29 per hour – a 3.7 percent increase, Lang said.
Meanwhile, nearly 145 garbage drivers and recycling center workers reached a tentative settlement March 31 on a new contract between the union and Allied Waste.
Allied Waste contracts with Kent to serve nearly 16,200 single-family homes. The company serves nearly 123,000 residential and commercial customers in King and Snohomish counties.
Union members voted March 28 to authorize a strike against the companies if talks halted and no contract agreement could be reached.
Allied Waste, based in Phoenix, Ariz., and Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, are large, multi-state companies that serve millions of customers nationwide.
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