Someone's gotta do it, A tough job: Substitute trash crews seen as saviors, scabs

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/13/DRIVERS.TMP

Someone's gotta do it
A tough job: Substitute trash crews seen as saviors, scabs

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer


Thomas Blake, 39, is a Waste Management Inc. employee who normally picks up trash in his home state of Michigan. On Sunday, he left behind his girlfriend and his 10-year-old daughter and hopped on a plane to California, where he was given laminated maps of Oakland and put behind the wheel of a garbage truck.

Blake endures cries of "scab" from some of the 500 local Teamsters workers locked out by Waste Management. He is shadowed on the job by guards mindful of the emotions fueled by the lockout, which is entering its 12th day.

But he also says he's getting plenty of gratitude from Oakland residents happy to see anyone taking their garbage away.

"It's heavy -- this route here hasn't been picked up in two weeks," Blake said Thursday after finishing his route in the Lakeshore neighborhood. "A lot of people appreciate it. A lot of customers want to give out tips, but I'm not supposed to take them."

Blake has worked for Waste Management for nine years in Michigan. He says he's making double his salary in Oakland, gets a per diem and daily bonuses, and was told he might be working for at least three weeks.

He said he's part of what Waste Management calls the "green team," workers who are available to drop everything and go out of state if needed to work unfamiliar routes because of labor disputes.

FULL story at link.

nt

Are all those "bonuses" worth your self respect?

They overpay them for a few weeks so the corporation can lockout the Union. When the scabs go back home, the Union is left to clean up the mess and mistakes. If we don't hang together, we will surely all hang separately.