Raleigh City Sanitation workers, whose courageous job action on September 13-14, 2006 shook the state and energized UE’s fight for public employee rights in North Carolina, on Friday called a press conference and rally at the same spot where they launched that strike, to make the public aware of continuing problems. They were joined by Raleigh city workers from other departments, and their event received major coverage in Raleigh-area news media.
Elected leaders of the city workers called for increased staffing and better equipment as well as changes to the solid waste department’s holiday work schedule and inclement weather policy. They charge that City Manager Russell Allen and Solid Waste Services Director Frederick Battle have not been responsive to their concerns.
“We need more people, and we need better equipment,” said Jerry Ledbetter, UE Local 150 chapter leader. “We can’t do the routes and we can’t do them properly.”
Following their 2006 action, sanitation workers got the city to hire more workers and to end mandatory overtime, two of their key demands. They also got regular “meet and confer” meetings with the mayor and members to city council to resolve other issues. But they are still denied the right to bargain a contract because of North Carolina’s anti-worker General Statute 95-98.
In the past 2 ½ years, the workers’ statement said “sanitation and park and rec, public works, utilities and other city workers have joined, built and strengthened their chapter of the union, UE Local 150, the NC Public Service Workers Union.” The union, they said, “has engaged in a good faith meet and confer process with the city. However, worker frustration with City Manager Russell Allen’s disrespectful attitude, lack of any openness to suggestions on even the simplest issues from the majority of the workforce has reached the point that the union is once again taking its case to the public.” They called on the city manager “to show workers basic respect so we can avoid having to consider further action to get justice.”
In June 2008 over 100 workers signed a petition requesting to get the same two days off that other non-emergency city workers get for Thanksgiving and any other holiday that falls on a Thursday. The city manager refused this request and refused a compromise offered by the union. “Instead,” says the union press release, “sanitation workers worked the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, missing precious time with our families.”