Recycling program
is not yet in the can

The union takes issue
with the city privatizing
curbside collection

City plans to start curbside recycling this month using private-sector employees were put on hold yesterday by a judge's ruling.

The United Public Workers union and the city have a contract for refuse workers that requires collective bargaining regarding any changes to it, Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna ruled.

The city's plans to hire private contractors to collect recyclables violated the contract, the union alleged.

The union had asked the court to maintain "the status quo" until its pending class-action grievance against the city is resolved.

The city says curbside recycling is a new service and that using private contractors does not affect the existing contract.

"It will simply make the (garbage) cans a little lighter" for city refuse workers, Paul Tsukiyama, a city corporation counsel, testified yesterday.

UPW attorney Herbert Takahashi argued that the city and union must go to arbitration and work out their differences.

"There is no way, after the fact of privatization, no possible way to correct it," even if an arbitration decision is in favor of the union, Takahashi said.

Yesterday's ruling halts city plans to hire private contractors to begin collecting recyclable items in Central and North Shore Oahu this month. Additional areas were to be added between November and next summer, until 140,000 single-family homes received the service.

City Environmental Services Director Frank Doyle called the ruling "a setback" and pledged that city officials will try to move through the grievance process with the union as quickly as possible.

According to Doyle, picking up recyclable materials using city workers and the city's existing refuse collection yards would cost the city $400,000 more a year than the $3 million-a-year apparent low bids from private haulers.

Two companies are apparent low bidders to collect recyclables -- Pacific Waste Services (GMI) for four of the six recycling areas, and International Resource Recovery Inc. for the other two areas.

A third contractor would be hired to process and sell the recyclables. None of the contracts have been signed. Doyle said he is not aware of any problem with contractors waiting to start work.

Mililani was the site of a four-month pilot project to test the effectiveness of curbside recycling, using city collection crews. The extended pilot project was stopped in August by a union complaint against the city, and Mililani was slated to resume recycling this month.

Mililani Neighborhood Board Chairman Dick Poirier said he has no preference for the city using its own workers or contract workers, but he is "still disappointed, almost to the point of outrage" that recycling has been postponed again.

"The city has delivered these new blue carts (for recyclables), so expectation has been pretty high we were going to get back into it," Poirier said. "Now this is another setback."