Garbage strike hits Huntington Beach

A strike by sanitation workers this week means garbage collection has

shut down in Huntington Beach and 16 other Orange County cities with

trash left to pile up in homes and city streets.

There has been no residential and limited commercial and industrial

garbage collection since Monday, and negotiators do not know when

collection will resume.

Workers, who are holding out for a 75% increase over five years,

rejected a deal agreed to by their labor union, for a 33.5% pay and

benefit increase over five years.

Gil Ortiz, a sanitation worker in Huntington Beach, said he currently

has trouble paying his rent and raising a family with the increased costs

of living.

“What they pay is not enough,” he said.

Ortiz and his co-workers said they do not feel that 33.5% is a large

enough increase.

“We’re asking for a reasonable pay increase for the workers to the

level of current living standards,” said Teamsters representative Bill

Huff, who said he is going back to the table for workers. “The offer

right now is unfair, the employees deserve more money.”

The agreement was signed by teamsters, but rejected by the men, said

Ron Shenkman, of Rainbow Disposal, which serves Huntington Beach and

several surrounding cities.

The offer on the table increased medical benefits, which cover workers

and their families at no cost and put the pay rate for a first-year

employee at $13.90 an hour plus raises every year for five years up to

$16 in fifth year, Shenkman said.

“Even at the [offered] rate now with the benefits and overtime that’s

a push for all of us,” Shenkman said.

The problem, Shenkman said, were promises of 75% made by teamsters to

workers at the start of negotiations.

It is an amount, Shenkman said, he has no intention of offering, but

said he holds no grudges against workers who he feels have been misled.

“We’ll welcome them back -- we think the world of them,” Shenkman

said. “We think they took advice that wasn’t good, but they’ve always

been good workers.”

Shenkman did warn that the offer of 33.5% won’t be on the table long

if they don’t take it.

In the meantime, federal negotiators are being brought in, Rainbow

Disposal is looking to find replacement drivers and residents may drop

off their trash at the Rainbow Disposal Transfer Station gate 5, 17121

Nichols St. free of charge.

If residents wish to wait for service to resume they are asked not to

leave it on the street, but put it in garages or out of sight, said Rich

Barnard, director of communications for the city of Huntington Beach.

* DANETTE GOULET is the assistant city editor. She can be reached at

(714) 965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 danette.goulet@latimes.comf7 .