OAKLAND – Workers in Waste Management’s recycling division are continuing a strike that began Friday, union representatives said.

“Escucha, escucha, estamos en la lucha,” or “Listen, listen, we are in the fight,” was the chant outside of the company’s recycling facility at 2615 Davis Street in San Leandro today.

Recycling workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 6 are also picketing outside the Houston-based company’s Alameda County headquarters at 172 98th Ave. in Oakland.

Recycling pickup is continuing, but workers are refusing to sort it, leaving the rubbish to pile up onsite, Waste Management of Alameda County spokesman Joe Camero said.

“We are managing that pile there,” Camero said, adding the recycling is being shipped to California Waste Solutions and Waste Management’s Lodi facility for processing.

Workers are asking management to treat the union, which represents roughly 130 recycling sorters, the same way it treats other unions employed by the company that have already signed labor agreements.

The recycling workers are predominantly Spanish-speaking immigrants, said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees, and feel the company doles out different treatment to different workers.

“These people just want to be treated with respect,” Merrilees said. “They’ve felt that way for a long time … They keep asking why the company seems to be picking on them.”

According to Camero, both the Machinists Local 1546 and the Local 6 Clerical unions ratified contracts earlier this year, but the ILWU Local 6 hasn’t ratified a contract since 2006. The contract expired in February 2011.

Merrilees said the two sides disagree about how much the company should cover health insurance rate increases. Waste Management is asking employees to chip in $35 each month, up from $25 in their old contract, and will cover rate increases up to 6 percent.

Merrilees said that’s too much risk for employees to take on.

“Workers take all the risk and go gambling for what health care will cost in the future,” Merrilees said. “Other employees don’t have that.”

The employees are also calling for a contract guaranteeing wage increases approved by the Oakland City Council last month, Merrilees said. Waste Management won a lucrative extension to their contract with the city, allowing the firm to continue operating in Oakland for another 20 years.

Many of the recycling division employees are sorters who currently receive about $12 per hour, Merrilees said. Under the rate structure proposed by Waste Management, starting salaries would rise to $13.99 per hour and increase to $20.94 an hour by July 1, 2019.

Camero said there was no disagreement about the wage structure and called the strike “unsanctioned” because it was not approved by the Teamsters Joint Council No. 7, a broad coalition of local unions established to support labor movements among its members.

Teamsters Joint Council President Rome Aloise characterized the ILWU’s struggle against Waste Management as unrealistic and called the workers “pawns” of the union leadership.

“The slogan and campaign that has been developed is based on a promise that cannot be met and is designed to create false hope for the workers,” Aloise said in a letter to the Alameda Central Labor Council dated Aug. 22. “Unfortunately, this is a particularly vulnerable group of workers who are caught in the middle of a situation fostered up on them by the leadership of Local 6.”

Workers voted down a proposed contract on July 26, Camero said.

In a memo dated April 4, 2013, leadership in the Machinists Local 1546 and the Teamsters Local 70, two other unions employed by Waste Management, described Local 6’s demands as “crazy.”

“While the company’s offer is not perfect, we don’t think the differences warrant a strike and we hope the Local 6 membership think carefully before rejecting the offer,” Don Crosatto of the Machinists Local 1546 and Felix Martinez of the Teamsters Local 70 said in a joint statement.

“Even in the heyday of the labor movement, no one got a 65 percent raise in three years. It’s crazy to ask you to jeopardize your job for these kinds of proposals and we’re not going to do it,” the pair said.

As of Monday, Merrilees said they were getting support from other employees at Waste Management, including drivers who called in sick so they would not have to cross the picket line.

The picket will continue “as long as necessary,” Merrilees said.

“Folks are very spirited. They have a lot of energy,” he said. “The company has to be aware they’re on the losing side of the battle to deny these low-wage workers the same benefits.”

Merrilees said they met last week with Waste Management but they do not have another meeting scheduled.

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