TRASH COLLECTOR STRIKE RAISES QUESTIONS
Ongoing action spurs discussions on pay and costs of living in county
It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
The monthlong strike of Republic Services sanitation workers, in Chula Vista and other parts of San Diego County, is shining a light on the unglamorous but necessary job.
Republic Services drivers in Teamsters Local 396, who make up the majority of the union’s membership, earn $24.60 per hour and are seeking a contract that would increase the hourly pay $2 in the first year and $1 per year thereafter. The contract would run until 2025, bringing the hourly wage to around $29.60 by the end of it.
The average hourly wage in San Diego County for all jobs
was $30.91 in May 2020, said the latest numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the national average for trash haulers is around $20.73 an hour,
said ZipRecruiter.
It’s not the most desirable job for a lot of reasons: bad smells, early hours and it takes a lot of physical labor. Wage comparisons are tricky because San Diego wages are higher than much of the nation, which correlates to higher costs for things like housing, and workers in unions tend to make more money than workplaces that are not organized, says data from the BLS.
San Diego State University business instructor Dan Eaton said the discussion over wages, in many places and not just with Republic Services, reflects the sharp rise of inflation and wage growth locally and nationwide.
“We are a pricey jurisdiction, everything costs more. On top of that, you have inflation,” he said. “Some of these numbers make sense in a way that wouldn’t have made sense even as recently as a year or two ago.”
Inflation in San Diego reached 6.5 percent in September, said data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, raising
prices from everything from gasoline to food. That was higher than the national average of 5.4 percent and the second-highest of the 12 metro areas tracked by the government. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, workers saw their pay from September to November increase an annualized average of 4.3 percent — its highest in about 13 years.
Eaton said there is no denying trash haulers have a very important role in civilized society but wages for jobs we consider worthy don’t always correlate. He said a good example is teachers, who are often revered but struggle with low wages.
“We all know people are not paid to the relative importance of their job,” he said. “They are paid according to the market. A lot of people say if teachers were paid what they are worth, they would be the highestpaid in the country.”
Jamie Vasquez, secretary-treasurer of the union, said in its most recent negotiation last week that the company said it was unable to increase wages to what workers were asking because Republic said it needs to remain competitive in the market. In Orange County, striking Republic Service workers were able to win a new contract after a week in December and, Vasquez said, were able to get the $2 in the first year and $1 per year thereafter.
“If the same work is being performed by workers that are just our neighbors to the north,” he said, “what our members are saying is we should at least be offered the same.”
Republic Services said in a statement: “The company’s offer featured a highly competitive wage and total compensation package and had the support and encouragement of city partners and leadership.”
Vasquez said it is tough to make ends meet as a trash hauler in San Diego, and several of its 250 members live in Tijuana to save money. He said it’s not the easiest job in the world and he is chock full of kooky stories, such as a worker recently encountering a rattlesnake behind a trash bin. Vasquez said an unintended consequence of the strike is people are learning how valuable their work is.
“The community is seeing drivers are like unnamed heroes,” he said. “They went out for two years of the pandemic, kept those cities, and county, safe and clean. They are professionals at what they do.”
Republic Services said it was disappointed the union had rejected its recent proposal. It said it has met to negotiate 15 times, including with a federal mediator. There was no set date for a future negotiation as of Tuesday afternoon. Chula Vista City Council was set to discuss its contract with Republic Services, the lone waste collection provider in the city, on Tuesday night.
Republic Services is based in Phoenix but has a slight local connection. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust owns about a third of the company. Bill and Melinda Gates, who are now divorced, purchased a
home in Del Mar for $43 million in March 2020.
In terms of revenue, Republic Services was the second-largest trash collector in the nation with $10.15 billion in 2020, according to Statista. The top was Houston-based Waste Management with revenue of $15.22 billion.
As of the third quarter, it had invested nearly $1 billion in acquisitions in a year for related businesses, including New Jersey-based ACV Enviro in September.
The global waste management market is anticipated to grow in future years, said an industry report by Allied Market Research. Its analysts predicted trash collection, disposal, recycling and composting were among areas for growth as proactive governments seek ways to avoid illegal dumping and adopt more environmentally friendly measures for disposing of waste.
California has followed the trends of richer nations, like Japan, by launching a state-mandated food waste program, creating more work for waste haulers. The idea is to reduce the amount of organic waste sent to landfills to curb methane emissions.