From staff reports:
Waste Management (WM) announced that customers who have a normally scheduled collection day on Wednesday should expect to have their garbage picked up today.
“The labor disruption continues to be a very unfortunate situation for our customers. Waste Management sincerely apologizes to our community for the inconvenience caused by the Teamsters strike. We are working diligently to resume services throughout Puget Sound. Additional WM substitute drivers continue to arrive, which will provide additional service capacity,” according to an official statement from wmnorthwest.com.
According to WM, commercial customers in King County should set out and/or unlock their containers as they would on a normal collection day. Residential customers in the cities of Federal Way, Algona, Auburn, Bothell, Burien, Kirkland, Maple Valley, Mill Creek, Redmond, Renton and Seattle should also proceed as normal with setting the appropriate containers curbside.
City spokesperson Chris Carrel said city staff will closely monitor the status of garbage collection throughout the neighborhoods in Federal Way.
“Based on communications with Waste Management, we understand that they will be working to restore residential garbage service in Federal Way, beginning with the Wednesday route,” Carrel said. “City staff will be surveying the routes to assess and document the extent to which they’re able to complete the routes and provide the services to our residents described in the franchise agreement.”
Besides city staff monitoring garbage collection, Federal Way Mayor Skip Priest penned a letter to WM earlier in the week, reminding the garbage giant of the aforementioned franchise agreement the city has with the company. If collection had not resumed by August 2, WM was looking at $500 for each missed collection.
Public Works Director Cary Roe said the city’s focus is on making sure residents are getting the needed services.
“The city is focused on enforcing Waste Management’s contract to see that our citizens get the service they’ve been promised,” Roe said. “Regardless of the reasons for the service disruption, our job is to protect the interests of Federal Way’s garbage and recycling customers.”
It appears as if that monitoring may not be needed, as WM announced an agreement with Teamsters Local 117 on August 2. According to WM, garbage drivers would be back on their regular routes as of August 2, but that the recycling and yard waste drivers would still be limited, as those two groups waited for ratification of the new labor agreement that day. The tentative agreement would be for six years, WM notes.
