For twenty-two sweltering days in August, 180 garbage haulers and mechanics of Teamsters Local 315 in Martinez, California struck Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), one of the nation's giant waste-hauling corporations. The mostly Latino workers, with spouses and children at their side, manned the picket-lines 24 hours a day, 7-days a week. There were no defections, the public was sympathetic to the strikers' demand for relief from forced 12-hour and 14-hour workdays and the Bay Area's top Teamster leaders promised their support. Yet, the determined strikers were severely defeated - but only after BFI brought in out-of-state scabs who ran over the top of the strikers, and the Teamster leaders spurned the strikers' pleas for solidarity. 

At least six months before the workforce hit the bricks, the Teamster leadership learned that BFI's negotiators for a new contract would be directed by the notorious union busting law firm of King & Ballow, who are also leading a prolonged fight against Detroit newspaper workers and who directed the bosses' operations in the 1994 San Francisco newspaper strike. That alone should have caused the Teamster leadership to mobilize its considerable resources for a tough fight. But the most they did at that time was to adopt a resolution calling on BFI to be fair to the workers. The resolution was presented on behalf of several local unions by Joint Council 7 President Chuck Mack, a leading member of the Hoffa slate, in the international union's upcoming election. 

Mack has enormous influence in San Francisco Bay Area Teamster affairs. He heads Local 70, a major trucking local union, and picks up an extra paycheck from the Teamsters joint council, which claims 55,000 members.  Mack has been a rising star in the union since the early 1970's, and has been on the union's payroll for fully half of his life. Bright and college educated, Mack is far from the stereotype of a beefy, cigar-chomping Teamster business agent. Indeed, Mack has intimated that long ago higher-ups in the union pushed him to the front, m order to counter the officialdom's rough guy image, Known as a smooth communicator, and a seasoned negotiator. Mack is the undisputed leader of the union's long-entrenched bureaucracy in Northern California. Unabashedly ambitious, he has publicly voiced his desire to be the international union's president. Only Ron Carey's election victories in 1991 and 1996 kept Mack from moving up the ladder, closer to the general president's office. 

In 1994, Mack took revenge on Carey by ordering his local union's UPS workers to work, despite Carey's call for a one-day strike to halt the company's welching on a freshly-signed national contract.  Mack also lined up other local union leaders to bust the strike, greatly weakening the strike' s usefulness. In 1992, Mack ditched rank and file negotiators and agreed to a duplicitous arbitration deal on most all major sections of a grocery contract covering 1000 workers with a Safeway distribution center. The arbitration left members without a vote on the final contract, and was so bad that even Mack admitted that it undermined grocery truckers' wage rates through out the region. What ever Mack's intentions were as a youthful union leader, today he is the epitome of a bureaucrat's bureaucrat. Mack is a devoted upholder of business-unionism, the false notion that workers should put the bosses' needs before their own needs, in order to not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. 

The night the garbage strikers voted on BFI's last contract offer their top officer told them that he had asked the area's Teamster unions for their support, but that they didn't help out.  He didn't mention Mack's role, probably because they've been politically allied for years. But the ranks knew that Mack had not used his powerful position to aid their strike, mobilizing the muscle of the area's 55,000 Teamsters, and the strength of the rest of organized labor. The ranks knew that some frustrated strikers had put-up unsanctioned lines at three trash landfills outside their jurisdiction, hoping to gain some leverage against BFI. One of the wild-catters reported to a public support meeting that one of Mack's business agents ordered the working drivers to defy the pickets.  When the pickets went to Mack's union hall to talk to him, the union's vice president said he would call the cops, if they didn't get off the union's property.  

From the beginning of the strike the workers expected that they would be able to extend their lines and close down other Bay Area BFI sites organized by the Teamsters.  Extending picket-lines to other locations owned by the same party to a contract dispute is still legal, unlike secondary picketing. But Mack had to give his approval, or the jobs of the workers who respected the extended lines would not be contractually protected. When BFI threatened to fire all the strikers, Mack said he would allow the picket line to be extended. But after a specially called meeting of the joint council, he said that the joint council voted not to allow the extension of the picket lines. However, Mack easily could have helped out the strikers on his own, since the BFI workers of his local union are working under a contract that expired June 30 and reportedly have authorized the union to call a strike. Now those workers face being whipsawed by the inferior settlement forced upon the strikers. 

The workers, who had been without a contract since February, went on strike on July 30 over BFI's demands that they work up to 14 hours a day and not respect other union's picket lines.  By August 13, the union officials had agreed to allow BFI to force workers to drive no more than 60 hours a week and BFI dropped its demand that the Teamsters must cross picket lines.  The San Francisco Chronicle reported that rank and file members of the negotiating committee were angry that they had been excluded from the talks, and the paper identified Mack as the architect of the proposed settlement. "According to union members, federal mediator Johnnie Scott Jr. advised the union that BFI negotiators were intimidated by the workers. This week Teamsters District Council President Chuck Mack...stepped into the discussions to broker a deal. 'This is not a textbook negotiating session, but in the final analysis, it's whatever works.' Strikers on the picket lines grumbled that it didn't work, based on the company's unacceptable proposal." 

Despite the announcement that the union leaders had caved-in on the forced overtime issue, many strikers continued to say that they would hold out against BFI's mandatory overtime demand.  Also, the strikers had a new issue; That BFI drop its civil suits against individual workers and allow all the workers to go back to work, "180 workers out 180 workers back in," they told the press. 

Given the workers' militant mood, it obviously was a bad time to put BFI's offer to a vote.  Instead, the officials continued to seek "clarifications" from BFI. Not until the night of August 21, did the officials call the strikers to a contract ratification meeting.  By that time, 15 workers had been fired and BFI was still seeking civil damages against individuals, as well as the union local.  Still resisting BFI's attempts to starve them into submission and BFI's terrorist tactics of firings and lawsuits and knowing that no help was coming from Mack and the joint council leadership, and knowing that the scab driven trucks would continue to roll, the workers voted down the BFI's offer, 81-70. While waiting for the vote results, strikers built a bonfire and threw in BFI's 22 page contract, and then removed their company T-shirts and caps and tossed them in the rising flames. 

After an interminable wait, union officials told the strikers that the vote was close and the officials ordered a second vote.  Before the second balloting, the union's top official told the workers that he didn't know what the 70 workers who voted to accept the contract would do. But if the 70 went back to work, BFI would fire the others and there would be no union.  A fired worker took the floor and said that the other workers, "Should not sacrifice themselves for us. The union hasn't done much, but it's all we've got." Other fired strikers agreed. The second vote was 105 to 23 to end the strike. 

The new four-year contract contains yearly 3% wage increases, which the officials use to claim some value for the strike. But BFI slapped the officials in the face by adding a new contract requirement that union "accredited representatives" may not set foot on the BFI property without first obtaining "advance approval," after giving "reasonable advance notice" to the District Vice President. Union officials visits "shall be limited to investigating and/or presenting grievances." 

No amount of airbrushing can cover up the fact that the strike was lost and the new contract is humiliatingly concessionary. But clearly, the facts indicate that the workers did not lose the strike - their misleaders did. Kept isolated from other Teamsters and the rest of the labor movement, the cards were stacked against the ranks from the beginning.  A striker's spouse said that many of the workers didn't speak English and were uncertain and confused "They needed encouragement", she said. "The leaders and the union lawyers never came down and explained what was going on." A rank and file member of the union's negotiating committee told the press that the union officials"...are weak and they just wanted to get the agreement and get it over with instead of fighting." Rank and filers efforts to win the strike, even though their hands were tied by their own officials, are hopeful signs that they may yet change the union to serve the ranks. Before leaving the meeting, the strikers voted to assess each returning worker $20 a week to go to the 15 fellow workers left behind. 
 

August 23, 1998