Federal appeals court sides with Teamsters in fight over back pay for Lorain trash routes

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati has upheld an arbitrator's ruling that Republic Services violated a contract it signed with the Teamsters in 2017 by unilaterally lowering their pay rates for routes in Lorain. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the ruling on March 8. In it, Senior Judge Danny Boggs wrote that Browning-Ferris Industries of Ohio Inc., doing business as Republic Services of Elyria, violated a collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters Local 20. Judges Amul Thapar and John Bush joined Boggs' opinion. The ruling is the result of a grievance filed by a Teamster in 2017 after Republic Services reorganized routes and technology but declined to increase pay rates as required under the contract. The union said Thursday it expects members will get back pay as a result of the court's decision. According to the appeals court, Browning-Ferris/Republic Services had a trash collection contract with the city of Lorain from December 2013 to December 2018. When that contract came back up for negotiation, the company moved from a manual collection system to an automated system in which drivers did not have to get out of the trucks to collect trash. Browning-Ferris negotiated a three-year contract extension in Lorain, and moved to automated collection in May 2017. It invested $4 million in new trucks and refitting old trucks and purchased 40,000 new waste and recycling containers, and got a three-year contract extension with the city. "The new receptacles limited waste disposal but encouraged recycling, and, consequently, the average household waste volume decreased while recycling volume increased," Boggs wrote. "The automated technology also made collection more efficient, although the evidence before the arbitrator was conflicting on the amount of the increase in house counts on collection routes that was enabled by the new system." Because this altered the routes and number of houses on those routes, the union contract required the company to put the routes up for bid. However, employees saw a change in rates the union said was made "unilaterally" by the company. During manual collection, they got 37 cents per house for trash and slightly more than 8 cents for recycling routes. Automated collection changed those rates to slightly more than 22 cents per house for trash and 1.7 cents per house for recycling — less than the company gave to drivers in other municipalities where it collected trash and recycling. The changes cost workers "hundreds of thousands of dollars," according to the union, which prevailed in an arbitrator's ruling in May 2019. The arbitrator reasoned "that after Browning-Ferris significantly reorganized the Lorain routes and technology, the higher rates it paid to drivers in neighboring communities would be the rates paid in Lorain," Boggs wrote. A federal district court in Cleveland vacated the arbitrator's award after the company appealed, ruling that the arbitrator didn't apply the contract terms correctly, and the union pursued the matter before the federal appeals court. In a statement to The Chronicle-Telegram sent Thursday, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters — which represents more than 7,000 Republic Services workers across the country — said members will be getting "a significant back pay award." Republic Services broke the contract of Teamsters Local 20 members in Elyria when it "improperly denied the workers the agreed-upon incentive rates of pay," the union announced. Republic Services is publicly traded and the second-largest trash collection and landfill company in the U.S. A message seeking comment was left for company representatives. In the court decision, Boggs wrote that the Teamsters took Republic Services to arbitration after the company's payment rates to drivers in Lorain violated the contract. The Teamsters said the court's decision "decisively ruled that the arbitrator had properly decided that the company had violated the collective bargaining agreement." "The court sustained the arbitrator's finding that the company's actions had cost waste-collection route drivers $2,859.48 per year and recycling route drivers $17,837.76 per year," according to the Teamsters. "It means a lot to us to win this decision. We were treated unfairly. Other employees were paid more while Republic Services held us down with a lower rate," said Thomas Coultrip, the residential driver at Republic Services who filed the initial grievance against the company five years ago, in a statement provided by the Teamsters. "At the end of the day, this was about what was right. The company tried to pull one over us and we refused to stand for it. This is a wonderful win for justice." Mark Schmiehausen, president of Local 20, said in a statement provided by the Teamsters that the court's decision was "a long time coming." "I was a business agent when these workers' rights were violated in 2017. The company thought they could skirt the rules, but we took this fight from arbitration all the way to the second-highest court in the country and showed Republic Services that they are not above the law," he said. "Now, workers will receive the back pay they are rightfully due. Teamsters Local 20 will always fight to ensure employers respect workers with fair treatment and fair rates for our members." Teamsters picketed the Republic Services facility on Butternut Ridge Road in Carlisle Township in May 2020 over lack of protection from the COVID-19 pandemic for its more than 200 drivers and 30 mechanics. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @daveobrienCT.