A local union representing waste and public works employees in Orange County has voted to go back on strike again, but talks were still continuing Tuesday.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors stuck to their last offer, triggering a vote from Teamster Joint Council 42 on Monday night to reject the offer.
Talks are ongoing, however, and it was unclear when picketing or a work stoppage will resume, according to Teamsters spokesman Christian Castro.
The supervisors had a special board meeting Friday to discuss the issue but no formal announcement was made. The supervisors met again Tuesday and had the issue on the agenda for their closed session, but again no announcement was made.
The strike was on hiatus from picketing so waste haulers could use the county’s landfills without crossing a picket line, Board Chairman Doug Chaffee said last week. That took the pressure off temporary sites that waste-hauling companies use before taking garbage to the county’s three landfills.
Castro said the union agreed to suspend the strike as an “olive branch of good faith.”
Orange County Board Vice Chair Katrina Foley told City News Service on Monday that the county needs “to reduce the anxiety for (the workers) and get people back to work.”
Foley noted that sales tax revenue continues to grow 2.7% on average, “so that’ good news, but the bad news is inflation and the cost of goods and the cost of labor and health insurance have all increased above that 2.7%. So we’ll have to be very cautious as we move forward. We’re all in the same boat. Everyone is suffering from increased costs.”
Supervisor Don Wagner told CNS last week that he believes the county’s “last, best and final offer was a reasonable one under the circumstances.” The county’s finances are tight, especially since it had to pay out millions of dollars in settlements for the Airport Fire, Wagner said.
“We’re really stuck because we have dwindling resources.”
Wagner urged the Teamsters to take the latest deal because it would only be for a year and the county is likely to be in better shape financially next year.
“Next year, there will be a new supervisor in District 4,” Wagner noted. “We’re also looking for a new CEO, and the third thing is we’ll have a better handle on next year’s financial situation. This is not a great time for big, monumental decisions.”
Orange County CEO K.C. Roestenberg took over for Michelle Aguirre when she retired and is not expected to stay in his job for many years, Wagner said.
“Likely, with a new board in January, we’d pick up the search again,” Wagner said.
The other issue for the county is if it sweetens an offer to the Teamsters it must do the same for all of the other unions in the county, Wagner said.
“Everything we do for one has to be shared with everyone else,” Wagner said. “Even a small deal with the Teamsters — and it would be small — has this magnifying effect across the entire county. It really does limit the board’s ability to do something.”
County and union officials also got into a back-and-forth 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.