City to halt Mililani
recycling project

A ruling finds the city violated
labor law in continuing the
program without union input

The city will halt its pilot curbside recycling program in Mililani next week after the union representing refuse collection workers won a ruling that the city violated state labor relations law.

Mayor Jeremy Harris announced yesterday what he called a "hiatus" in Mililani curbside recycling until the city can work out its plan for islandwide curbside recycling.

Harris called the situation a "bump in the road" and promised that if the city cannot reach agreement with the United Public Workers bargaining Unit 1, it will seek bids to privatize collection of recyclables.

Since November the city has made curbside recycling available to 10,000 Mililani homes.

"A lot of people have gotten into the habit. I think a lot of people will be affected and be upset it's going to stop," said Mililani Mauka Neighborhood Board Chairwoman Melissa Graffigna.

The city budget includes $2.5 million to begin curbside recycling at 140,000 single-family homes on Oahu. Bids have been received from two companies seeking to handle processing glass, plastic, newspaper and aluminum collected by city refuse workers and from one company seeking to both collect and process the items. No contract has been awarded, pending the resolution of bid protests.

Dayton Nakanelua, UPW state director, said yesterday that the city did not provide the union with requested and required information for both the Mililani pilot project and the islandwide proposal to allow the union to evaluate the programs.

"The city wouldn't come to the negotiating table," Nakanelua said, and that led the union to file its complaint with the Hawaii Labor Relations Board on June 30. The board ruled in favor of the union on Aug. 5.

According to the union's complaint, it agreed to the city's Mililani pilot project from November to January and to extending it through March 31. But after March the city never sought approval of additional months of service in Mililani.

David Shiraishi, administrator of the city Refuse Collection Division, said the city understood that the union was agreeable to a month-to-month continuation in Mililani. "Really, what we should have done was to have a whole bunch of (monthly) extensions and had the union sign them," Shiraishi said. "We didn't do that."

Mililani residents should receive letters from the city today or tomorrow explaining that curbside collection of mixed recyclables will stop after this week until further notice, said Suzanne Jones, the city recycling coordinator. Residents will be encouraged to take recyclables to bins at area schools, she said.

Yard clippings, which Mililani residents have been putting out in the city-provided recycling bins every other week, now must be bagged or bundled for manual pickup, Jones said. A schedule for yard clipping pickup will be included in the mailings, she said.