Garbage bags overflowing in dumpsters. Flies buzzing in the air. Malodorous fumes wafting in the summer sun – an unsightly mess is plaguing American cities from coast to coast this summer.
Some employees of Republic Services – a Fortune 500 private waste-management company with municipal contracts across America - have been refusing to take out the trash since going on strike over three weeks ago.
The Teamsters union, which represents the company's workers, say they are being paid far below other sanitation workers and receive worse benefits. But the company says the union isn't willing to compromise, and while relations rot, so does the garbage.
The strike began on 1 July with Local 25, which serves 14 communities in the Greater Boston area, and spread to several other cities in the US: Manteca, California; Ottawa, Illinois; Cumming, Georgia; and Lacey, Washington. More employees stopped work in solidarity.
"The cost of living is high – what they're offering, I wouldn't be able to live on that in a month," said Mike Ortiz, a truck driver from Malden, Massachusetts who's worked in the industry for 17 years.
