Trash dispute eases,
pickups still erratic
Garbage that wasn't collected
By Gregg K. Kakesako and Lori Tighe
yesterday will be picked up on
Thursday, officials say
Star-BulletinA labor stoppage involving garbage collectors has been averted, while union leaders and city officials continue to haggle over a 2 percent pay raise and expanded automated collection routes. Trucks rolled out of the Pearl City base yard early this morning, and officials said garbage left on curbsides yesterday will be picked up on Thursday.
Frank Doyle, city refuse division chief, said the city is temporarily going back to old collection routes and methods. Only those Oahu residents who recently were informed of a change in garbage collection days and methods will be affected. He said that includes about 70,000 residents. Among them:
Residents who received a 96-gallon gray trash container for automated collection in the last two months. They are being asked to store the cans and go back to the old way of putting out their trash.
Doyle said most of the affected residents live in Makaha, Halawa Valley and Ahuimanu to East Waimanalo. He recommended that people whose garbage was not collected yesterday leave their trash on the curb for Thursday collection.
At least 50 drivers and collection workers at the Pearl City base yard returned to their jobs this morning, working under the old contract agreement.
"I'm glad to be working," said Michael Cordray, who works on an automated collection route in the Kapolei-Village Park-Royal Kunia-Palisades area.
"I hope we will be paid for yesterday. We came here willing to work, but were not issued keys to work."
The union told garbage collectors not to pick up trash because a new agreement to switch to automated collection was voided with the mayor's rejection of their 2 percent raise, officials said yesterday.
That meant an estimated 20,000 people went without refuse collection. About 7,000 of those residents were on the new routes, and 13,000 were on the old routes.
If collectors hadn't returned to work today, another 20,000 households would have been affected.
The city filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit yesterday in Circuit Court. The city claims the union decided to walk out, declaring the new contracts for automating pickup null and void because the city refuses to give workers a 2 percent pay raise.
"We have a clear case. The facts speak for themselves," Corporation Counsel David Arakawa said yesterday.
"We never ever told them the mayor could afford the raise," said Chris Parsons, first deputy corporation counsel. The raise amounts to $14 million.
"They're attempting to use the automated trash effort as a lever to get their raise, which we can't afford.
"We're laying people off -- how can we give them a raise?"
"We believe the public should not be held hostage in this process. . . . We are a convenient but unfair target of his anger," acting Mayor Bob Fishman said yesterday, referring to UPW State Director Gary Rodrigues.
Mayor Jeremy Harris, out of town in Japan on a baseball promotion trip, was to return today.
Under a March 2 agreement between the city and the UPW covering 175 unionized refuse workers, the city planned to expand automated collections. Eight routes serving 22,700 homes would be converted. The city estimated savings of $1.1 million.
The new automated and manual collection trash routes began March 30 for residents in Waianae and April 6 for Pearl City area residents. Three Kailua communities were supposed to come under the new system yesterday.
The two issues of automation and pay raises remain separate and unlinked, Fishman said.
The UPW claims the two agreements are linked, and has asked the Hawaii Labor Relations Board to intervene and settle the issue. In a complaint filed April 3, the union said the agreement to expand automated refuse pickup is tied to the collective-bargaining settlement that would give union workers 2 percent annual raises retroactive to July 1995.
The city has not yet filed its response with the board, and no hearing has been set.
Neighbor island mayors have joined Harris in refusing to approve the contract settlement, amounting to $14 million, which the state approved.
The state has four votes in the bargaining process, and each county has one vote, so the issue is deadlocked and unlikely to be resolved in time for the Legislature to fund pay raises this year.
The automation will save the city a lot of money, Fishman said. But the agreement Rodrigues signed March 2 with the city to automate collection said nothing about pay raises, he said.
While it lasted, everyone
felt down in the dumpsGarbage was piling up on
By Mary Adamski
neighborhood lawns and sidewalks
Star-BulletinWhile the city and union officials are wrapped in a dispute over pay raises, garbage is piling up neighborhood lawns and sidewalks.
Kailua resident Zena Fernandez found her garbage still piled at the curb yesterday after trash collectors didn't make their pickups.
"We depend on those things, we take it for granted and when it's not done, it's sorely missed," said Fernandez, of Oneawa Street.
"While it's in court, in the meantime, what do we do with our garbage?" said Fernandez. "I don't have a way to go to the dump."
Hers was one of 20,000 households on Oahu without expected refuse collection yesterday because of a United Public Workers union work stoppage. About 7,000 were residents covered by the new agreement to expand automated refuse pickup.
"We cleaned the yard this weekend, and there's the usual dog mess. Our neighbors in back put theirs on our front yard. Coupled with ours, it will get really bad really quick," said Fernandez, whose street has been issued a new schedule for automated pickup.
Puni Chee of Ewa Beach said his family filled the big trash container to capacity because of a big gathering on the Easter holiday weekend. "We generate a lot of waste, food waste. I'm not looking forward to the crab shells hanging around and I don't think the neighbors will appreciate it either."
Their first automated pickup was last week.
Kumuiki Village in Kapolei was one of the first neighborhoods to have automated pickup about six years ago. "We could get by until the second pickup is missed, our family doesn't generate a lot," said Paula Loring of Makahou Street. "By the end of the week, after the lawn guys are here, it'll have an impact."
Naomi Kahikina of Nanakuli Road said "We live close enough to the dump to take it down. That's what we will do if it's not picked up in couple days." She said it was to be the first day of the new method of pickup. "Everybody on this street's got a lot of rubbish" so they make good use of the large containers, she said.
"I don't understand their strategy. We have been automated for a while and we didn't understand why we were skipped," said Edwina Wong of Kanehoa Loop, Makakilo. "If it's missed again on Thursday, then it might start bothering us. In Makakilo, we're already on the automated route since 1994 or 1995."
Like other residents, Nadine Onodera of Kaneohe knew the halt in trash pickup was tied to labor negotiations for a pay raise for refuse division workers.
"Everyone is feeling the financial crunch, with people you know getting laid off. Many of us are thinking, 'Thank God we've got a job,'" she said.
Your choices
City actions in response to the garbage dispute:
