Calls it "last, best and final offer"
By Michael Burke
Journal Times | Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008 12:00 am
RACINE COUNTY - Following six hours of talks between striking trash haulers and their employer, Waste Management released details of its contract offer to the Teamsters on Wednesday.
The garbage strike that affects 100,000 residential and 16,000 commercial customers in southeast Wisconsin is now in its third week. Both sides met Tuesday and Wednesday to try and resolve it.
Waste Management said it proposed a new five-year contract with Teamsters Local 200 that would "significantly boost employee wages and benefits while freeing the company from long-term liability for an ailing Teamster-led pension plan."
Waste Management said it would plow all of the premiums it now pays to the failing Central States Pension Fund into new benefits and wages for employees represented by Teamsters Local 200, and allocate additional funds for their compensation under a "last, best and final offer" presented Wednesday.
In a release sent Wednesday night, Teamsters spokesman Galen Munroe said the union would withhold comment on the offer until "members on strike have had an opportunity to fully understand what has been put on the table."
However, the release indicated that in the Union's experience a "last and final offer" traditionally indicates that a company is "closing any further negotiations and refusing to entertain any counter
offer from the union."
Waste Management said it is willing to accept an increase in its current expenses in exchange for releasing the company and its Teamsters Local 200 employees from the ailing Central States Pension Fund, according to Michael Fleming, market area general manager.
The company is urging the union to bring the proposal before its members as quickly as possible and awaiting word on when that will happen.
"This is a package our employees and their families will welcome," Fleming said. "We want them back on the job."
Waste Management's proposal calls for first-year wage increases of 10 to 15 percent, with 3 percent increases during later years of the five-year pact.
Workers would become immediately eligible for a defined contribution pension plan to which the company would initially contribute $1,000 for each eligible employee. The company would contribute an additional 50 percent match for an employee's voluntary contributions of up to 6 percent of the employee's compensation.
Company spokeswoman Lynn Morgan said no further talks are planned and the next step should rest with the striking employees.
The Teamsters began their strike the morning of Aug. 26, accusing Houston-based Waste Management of "threats and coercion" and not dealing strictly with appointed union negotiators. Both sides have filed unfair-labor practice charges against the other with the National Labor Relations Board.
Locally, Waste Management collects residential trash and/or recyclable materials from about 13,600 residential and 1,900 commercial customers in Caledonia, Waterford, Union Grove and Somers.
Six southeastern Wisconsin counties are affected by the strike, which has forced Waste Management to collect trash and recyclable materials with managers and drivers from elsewhere. Garbage and recyclables have been at some curbsides for days.
The drivers have been working without a contract since April 30. Waste Management says the main issue at stake is a financially shaky Teamsters pension fund which the company would like to replace with another, mutually acceptable fund.
Waste Management said that Central States has threatened to cut employee benefits if Teamsters 200 withdraws and is pressing the company and other employers to increase their fund contributions.
"Central States' decision to strip these benefits from our employees is outrageous," Fleming said. "Our company strongly opposes these benefit reductions, questions their validity and has repeatedly asked Central States to reverse its decision."
Waste Management says Central States' deteriorating condition landed it on the Treasury Department's "critical status" list, reserved for funds in grave condition.
"We're not willing to pay more and more into a fund that's giving our employees less and less," Fleming said. "The longer we stay, the more we pay and the less our hard-working employees can count on for their retirement years."
Instead, Fleming said, Waste Management intends to redirect its Central States' contributions to help pay for a new defined contribution pension plan, wage increases, an enhanced health plan and other employee compensation.
Journal Times reporter Pete Wicklund contributed to this report.