The Orange County Board of Supervisors began a special closed-door meeting Friday to consider new proposals for a labor contract with the local union representing waste and public works employees.
“We have kind of a side deal to reopen the landfills” in the meantime, Board Chairman Doug Chaffee told City News Service on Wednesday.
Teamsters Joint Council 42 spokesman Christian Castro said the union agreed to suspend the strike as an “olive branch of good faith.”
Before the meeting began, an aide to Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, read a letter to the supervisors from the congressman encouraging the board and the union to “continue working together for a fair resolution.”
The board then went into closed session to review proposals from the Teamsters Joint Council 42 that were provided through a mediator. The mediator has met separately with representatives from both sides.
The Teamsters strike, which started last week, is on hiatus from picketing so waste haulers can now use the county’s landfills without crossing a picket line, Chaffee said. That takes the pressure off temporary sites waste-hauling companies use before taking garbage to the county’s three landfills.
“Now that we have the landfills open the trash companies storing trash are now able to access that,” Chaffee said. “That’s supposed to be good all week. But I don’t know what happens if we say no to all their stuff on Friday. We’re hoping we now can have reasonable conversations instead of strikes going forward.”
County and union officials got into a back-and-forth this week over the Teamsters’ picketing tactics. The county filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board alleging the picketers were breaking the law with “human chains” and blocking traffic while also falsely telling customers the landfills were closed.
Teamsters officials countered that the allegations were untrue and accused county officials of violating labor law themselves.
“We have pictures and statements from (waste hauling) drivers, but I guess that’s all in our imagination,” Chaffee said of the evidence the county has presented for its case.