Posted on: Friday, November 19, 2004
Ruling setback for recycling program
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
A new ruling by the state Labor Relations Board may give city garbage workers more ammunition in their fight against plans to start a privatized islandwide household recycling program.
The decision also could make it harder for Mayor Jeremy Harris to launch the program before he leaves office in early January.
In a detailed written follow-up to a verbal ruling in August, the labor board found that the city improperly continued a recycling pilot program in Mililani after an agreement with the United Public Workers union expired.
The program "is a mandatory subject of bargaining," the board found, and the city's actions constituted "a refusal to bargain in good faith."
The city was forced to halt the Mililani program after the August ruling, but Harris announced that he would proceed with plans for an islandwide recycling program.
The city later said the expanded program would be privately operated, but the union filed a class-action grievance and won a court order that forces the issue to go through binding arbitration.
The union says privatization would violate a 1998 union agreement that allowed the city to shift from manual garbage collection to automated collection.
UPW attorney Herb Takahashi said the labor board's ruling strengthens the union's argument that the city must negotiate with the union over recycling.
The city contends that the 1998 deal was superceded by a 2001 state law that allows privatization of public services; that recycling is separate from garbage collection; and that the labor board ruling adds nothing new.
The city and union had clashed over plans to run the recycling program out of a single baseyard in Waipahu, rather than out of seven yards scattered around the island.
Union officials believed that using a single yard would upset a system through which worker seniority determines how garbage-collection routes and overtime are assigned.
Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
