Community & Workers Picket Waste Mis-Management

By 7am this morning, more than 50 community members answered the call to join locked out garbage workers on the picket lines outside of Waste Management's main truck depot on 98th Ave in Oakland swelling the number of pickets to at least 90.

Houston-based Waste Management International, a Fortune 500 company, is pouring more than $600,000 a day into a massive scabbing operation designed to break the will of Teamsters Local 70, which represents about 500 garbage haulers.

About 50 scab garbage trucks left the 98th Ave. depot this morning, which is not a low number for Saturday service. However, given the mounds of rotting garbage left throughout the poorest areas of the East Bay, this is merely a token effort by Waste Management to address the poor service provided by scab labor. According to locked-out workers, the scabbing operation is putting just 2/3rds of the usual number of trucks on the street during the week.

At the picket rally this morning sponsored by the ISO, workers and supporters reiterated a call for community support: 1. All are welcome to walk the picket lines, which are 24/7, 2. Donate money or canned goods to the hardship fund and 3. Complain as loudly as possible about the poor service received since the lock-out.

More background is available at: http://www.alamedalabor.org and http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/638/638_16_EastBay.shtml

Solidarity forever!