NYC Teamsters make splash with campaign to fix commercial waste industry

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mvRRrpHIivMAalRn2qPwNEj16CXOySzVNOEG3-IMTKRsXQeTvULIY_W7IN0SMFEBlNnN3s0x5J0K_P3ZNMONyrakSagxvP_L-SkokV2mmdmgjbUYUObaywMy8eYoeRUcwle915V-oyAM/s1600/joint+council+16+NYC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mvRRrpHIivMAalRn2qPwNEj16CXOySzVNOEG3-IMTKRsXQeTvULIY_W7IN0SMFEBlNnN3s0x5J0K_P3ZNMONyrakSagxvP_L-SkokV2mmdmgjbUYUObaywMy8eYoeRUcwle915V-oyAM/s400/joint+council+16+NYC.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teamsters JC 16 President George Miranda and Teamster brothers and sisters</td></tr></tbody></table>New York City welcomed the news yesterday of the Teamsters' new coalition to reform the commercial waste industry, an alliance that includes small businesses fed up with shakedowns and environmentalists fed up with fighting air pollution.<br /><br />Sean Campbell, president of Teamsters Local 813, told a news conference yesterday what union members are fed up with. The <a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/306815-report-suggests-commercial-waste-management-reform/" rel="nofollow">Epoch Times</a> reported on his remarks:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Growing up, jobs in the sanitation industry were good paying jobs with good pension plans. Now the majority of private owners pay very low wages and little in benefits. Many break the most basic health and safety regulations.</blockquote>At the same news conference, Teamsters International Vice President George Miranda (and Teamsters Joint Council 16 president) called on the city to work with unions and community groups to tackle commercial waste in New York City.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">It's time we open a new phase of recycling with New York's commercial carters.</blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS04dH5uqOyJg3j2QTpAlkaB4al4TU83bLYsIl-PnLH1MhT0EGALivp-ajVILgemHUjylrDumbRLnVV-iLfaWcmHq1wzn4jZlx060jiMRnxl_XlcX1_bHnfmHCKpCDYzyukeSDu3QVlvfT/s1600/Errol+Louis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS04dH5uqOyJg3j2QTpAlkaB4al4TU83bLYsIl-PnLH1MhT0EGALivp-ajVILgemHUjylrDumbRLnVV-iLfaWcmHq1wzn4jZlx060jiMRnxl_XlcX1_bHnfmHCKpCDYzyukeSDu3QVlvfT/s400/Errol+Louis.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Errol Louis with Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs<br />New York, which endorsed the coalition's report.</td></tr></tbody></table>New York City's beloved <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/overdue-trash-overhaul-article-1.1474501" rel="nofollow">Daily News columnist</a><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/overdue-trash-overhaul-article-1.1474501" rel="nofollow"> Errol Louis</a> wholeheartedly endorsed the plan by what he called "an unlikely environmental activists and neighborhood groups." Louis explained what's wrong with New York's commercial waste industry:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">...the commercial trash removal system has been an environmental and economic scandal for decades. In 1996, prosecutors indicted dozens of carting company executives, accusing them of running the garbage firms as branches of the Genovese and Gambino crime organizations. The mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, created a government agency, the Trade Waste Commission (now called the Business Integrity Commission), to weed out the crooks. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">But Rudy didn’t kill the beast. This year, federal prosecutors arrested 30 waste haulers, calling them members of the Gambino, Genovese and Luchese crime families and accusing them of racketeering — everything from loansharking to shaking down legitimate businesses and dividing up the New York area into territories controlled by different mobsters. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">To make matters worse, according to Transform Don’t Trash, a large number of commercial waste companies compete in the same neighborhoods, with multiple diesel-powered trucks running up and down the same streets, spewing soot and leaving potholes and chewed-up pavement in their wake. A lack of oversight leaves low-level waste workers badly underpaid and exposed to poisons, disease and accidents, making trash collection and removal one of the 10 deadliest occupations in America. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">And most of the garbage finally arrives in low-income, outer-borough neighborhoods. Manhattan, which generates 41% of the city’s commercial waste, has only 2% of the city’s solid waste transfer stations and 3% of the recycling facilities, according to the coalition.</blockquote>

JC16 NYC waste NYC Teamsters make splash with campaign to fix commercial waste industry

Teamsters JC 16 President George Miranda and Teamster brothers and sisters New York City welcomed the news yesterday of the Teamsters' n...

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NYC Teamsters begin campaign to create good commercial waste jobs

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFYEMlNubQ1vSrBk5Gn5mZD5HwCUqJmRX0_tgkkGczvIdypJkOCIswadKSW6TAsa0o0BbhaFeeWrwURbE0EUu1zA8Hoqt2hVpgvIuIqVAKddrBUsWRfZFvvmzbra7s6boUMCYGmmjFqbH/s1600/miranda2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFYEMlNubQ1vSrBk5Gn5mZD5HwCUqJmRX0_tgkkGczvIdypJkOCIswadKSW6TAsa0o0BbhaFeeWrwURbE0EUu1zA8Hoqt2hVpgvIuIqVAKddrBUsWRfZFvvmzbra7s6boUMCYGmmjFqbH/s400/miranda2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda with Sean Campbell,<br />president of Teamsters Local 813.</td></tr></tbody></table>(Updates to add photo)<br /><br />New York City Teamsters and their allies have high hopes for a campaign launched today to increase good jobs, recycling and justice in the commercial waste industry. New Yorkers are paying attention.<br /><br />This morning the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/city-recycle-compost-90-waste-report-article-1.1473457" rel="nofollow">New York Daily News</a> reported the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN)  is recommending the city adopt a franchise system involving competitive bidding, a reduced number of companies and higher environmental and labor standards.<br /><br />What the newspaper missed was the creation of a strong new alliance -- Transform Don't Trash NYC -- to make that happen. The campaign to tackle the problems of New York City's commercial waste industry involves the Teamsters, <a href="http://www.alignny.org/" rel="nofollow">ALIGN</a>, environmental justice and community advocacy groups.<br /><br />A month away from Election Day, mayoral and city council candidates would do well to listen to their message.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.teamstersnewyorkcity.org/" rel="nofollow">Teamsters Joint Council 16</a> President George Miranda said at a City Hall news conference today:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Today is the day we make New York City a better place to live and work.</blockquote>Miranda told the press wages are falling in New York's commercial waste industry, with new hires in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island earning just below $20,000 a year:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">This industry has become a "Wild West." Unsafe and sometimes illegal operators are driving a race to the bottom in wages and health and safety.</blockquote>The news conference followed the release of a study showing the city could recycle and compost more than 90 percent of commercial waste, but the current rate is much lower than that.<br /><br />"This stinks," wrote Daily News reporters Daniel Beekman and Stephen Rex Brown: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">...of the 3.2 million tons of commercial waste generated each year, 2 million tons are buried in landfills or burned in incinerators. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The Alliance for a Greater New York, which wrote the report released Wednesday, blames a dysfunctional commercial waste industry that reeks of inefficiency.</blockquote><a href="http://nyc-eja.org/?page_id=80" rel="nofollow">Eddie Bautista</a>, executive director of the <a href="http://nyc-eja.org/" rel="nofollow">New York City Environmental Justice Alliance</a>, said  it's time to stop burying low-income communities of color under mountains of commercial waste.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The time has come for New York City to stop burying communities -- as well as burying potential recycling jobs. ... the next mayor can really jumpstart a commercial recycling program that both increases long-neglected recycling work opportunities, while continuing to decrease our carbon footprint.</blockquote>Teamsters Joint Council 16 includes <a href="http://www.dsnyfamily.com/general-information/labor/teamster-local831/" rel="nofollow">Teamsters Local 831</a>, which represents New York City sanitation workers.<br /><br />

environmental justice JC16 New York City waste NYC Teamsters begin campaign to create good commercial waste jobs

Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda with Sean Campbell, president of Teamsters Local 813. (Updates to add photo) New York Ci...

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