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Managers and administrators from Greenteam/Zanker—the company that runs the Sunnyvale Materials Recovery and Transfer Station—don't usually drive garbage trucks. But they started getting behind the wheel the morning of Aug. 11 to make sure garbage would be picked up in Sunnyvale.
While truck drivers for Specialty Solid Waste & Recycling—who do pick up the garbage—are not on strike, they cannot drive past the equipment operators' picket line just outside the transfer station because they are in the same union as the operators. So the managers from both Specialty and Greenteam/Zanker are driving the garbage trucks over the line, dumping the garbage and then driving them back out to the truck drivers.
It's the equipment operators, drivers and sorters at Greenteam/Zanker who are striking over what they say are below-standard wages and treatment.
Equipment operator Thomas Mendoza said the operators are paid several dollars an hour less than other equipment workers
in the South Bay and have fought for a raise in wages and benefits for the better part of two years.
"We're tired of it," Mendoza said. "We just want what everyone else in the Bay Area is getting. We're the most underpaid of anyone in the area doing our job."
The majority of the workers—known as "sorters" because they sort the materials that come into the station—make $8 an hour, $4 less than the prevailing wage in the area. Mendoza was also picketing because he said management has delayed contract negotiations for operators and drivers.
"We live in the Bay Area, too; we have expenses just like everyone else, and I think we do a darn good job over there," Mendoza said. "There are a lot of people who would not want to do our jobs."
According to a release from the Sanitary Truck Drivers and Helpers Local Union 350, the state of California issued a "Prevailing Wage and Benefits" order on July 23, which the union says Greenteam/Zanker is obligated to meet.
On Aug. 11, Greenteam/Zanker's general manager met with union representatives to say that the company had no intention of offering the prevailing wage.
Specialty General Manager Jerry Nabhan, who bid on the SMaRT Station contract four years ago—said he and other Specialty managers have to drive the trucks into the facility because their union drivers cannot cross the picket line. He said garbage has begun piling up inside because the people who usually sort and process it are on strike.
At press time, Greenteam/Zanker had issued no statement, but garbage pickups—handled by Specialty—were still going on in Sunnyvale.
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