Sanitation Workers

This Job Is Trash But Everyone Loves It

August 21, 2025 Cottage and Company, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperative, Massachusetts, Sanitation Workers, Zero Emissions

They ride like the pro cyclists you see on TV, logging long hard miles, day in and out, but you won’t see them at the Tour De France. Instead, they tow 8-foot trailers stacked with over 300 pounds of trash through the streets, 365 days a year. Will Malcolm is a professional cyclist at Pedal People, a bike-powered garbage collection business combining human power, zero-emissions transportation, and a worker-owned cooperative model, making it one of the most unconventional jobs in America. This is the story of how Pedal People is changing the way we think about waste management, cycling careers, sustainability, and what it means to take out the trash.

Philly’s DC 33 Union To Vote On Agreement To End Historic Strike

July 21, 2025 R. Martin, Unicorn Riot. Strategize! Contract Negotiations, Philadelphia, Sanitation Workers, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, PA — American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 33 (DC 33), the city’s largest blue-collar union, launched a historic strike earlier this month, halting sanitation services on a scale not seen since 1986. Despite the pro-union image Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker wishes to project, legal injunctions were used to force many city employees back to work – creating pressure to end the strike. “The city was trying to pick us apart with injunctions all over the place,” requiring water department employees, 911 dispatchers, and city medical examiners to return to work immediately, DC 33 President Greg Boulware explained in a recent interview.

Trash Pickup Strikes Spread Nationwide

July 12, 2025 Mike Ludwig, Truthout. Resist! Sanitation Workers, Solidarity, Strikes, Unions, Wages, Worker Rights

A local sanitation workers strike that began on July 1 in Boston, Massachusetts, and left trash unpicked across the city is now spreading nationwide in a series of labor actions coordinated by the Teamsters union as frustrated workers demand better pay and benefits from Republic Services, a major waste disposal company. The Teamsters said in an email on Friday that about 550 sanitation workers were on strike in multiple cities while 1,600 others refused to cross picket line extensions in solidarity with the strikers at local Republic Services sites in Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, Washington State, and California.

Philadelphia DC 33 Strikers: ‘When We Fight, We Win!’

July 5, 2025 Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sanitation Workers, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Philadelphia, PA - As the historic strike by 9,000 members of Philadelphia’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 continues, workers’ militancy is escalating, and support for them is growing. Mountains of uncollected garbage are growing at official city collection sites in neighborhoods around the city. Some have been dubbed “the Parker Piles” after Mayor Cherelle Parker. Actions in support of the striking workers are being held all over the city, from protests outside municipal buildings to shutdowns of scab trash collection sites to librarians’ refusals to cross the picket lines of their library staff maintenance coworkers.

Philadelphia Municipal Workers Strike Before July 4 Celebrations

July 3, 2025 Paul Prescod, Labor Notes. Resist! Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Public Workers, Sanitation Workers, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Nine thousand blue-collar workers who make Philadelphia run went on strike July 1. After sacrificing through the pandemic and years of bruising inflation, they say they’re on strike so they can afford to live in the city they serve. Already, uncollected garbage is piling up as the workers, members of AFSCME District Council 33, defend their strike lines. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the term “essential worker” into widespread use, but many experienced a gap between how they were talked about and how they were treated. They were called essential, but regarded as disposable. In June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, hundreds of Philadelphia sanitation workers and other DC 33 members rallied to demand hazard pay and personal protective equipment.

What’s Next For India’s ‘Manual Scavengers’ After Major Legal Victory

November 13, 2023 Ankush Pal, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! India, Sanitation Workers, Worker Rights, Workplace Safety

In late August, hundreds of women sanitation workers came together at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The 18th-century astronomical observatory has become a popular place to publicly show dissent in India due to its proximity to the Parliament, a little more than a mile away. The protesters were opposing recently released official statistics regarding the death of sanitation workers. The women claimed that the number of so-called “manual scavengers” who died while on duty due to the precarious nature of the occupation was much higher than what the Parliament claimed. Timed to coincide with the government’s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of India gaining independence from the British, the demonstration was part of a widespread series of coordinated actions using the slogan “Stop Killing Us.”

North Carolina Sanitation Workers Strike For $5K Bonuses

October 8, 2023 Ben Carroll, Labor Notes. Resist! North Carolina, Sanitation Workers, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

“We’re here to make a stand. At least 40 trucks should be on the road right now, and as far as we know, no trucks have gone out this morning,” said Durham, North Carolina, sanitation worker Christopher Benjamin, flanked by 100 sanitation and other city workers at a September 6 press conference. This was the first morning of a six-day strike by the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union (United Electrical Workers, UE, Local 150). During the six-day “stand down,” as they called it, sanitation workers would show up to the yard each morning and refuse to take out the garbage and recycling trucks, instead holding meetings and rallies in the parking lot throughout the day.

Waste Piles Up In Edinburgh, Residents Told To Store Rubbish At Home

August 22, 2022 Chris Green, I News. Resist! Sanitation Workers, Scotland, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

Rubbish has started piling up in Edinburgh at the start of an 11-day strike by refuse workers over pay, with city residents being told to store rubbish in their houses and gardens. All bin and recycling collections have been suspended in the Scottish capital for the duration of the strike, which began at 5am on Thursday and will continue until Tuesday 30 August. Street cleaning and the removal of waste from public litter bins has also been cancelled, with all recycling centres also closed and flytipping reports going unanswered. Edinburgh City Council’s official advice to residents is to “stock up on strong black bags” and store their extra rubbish in their gardens, garages or driveways.

Sanitation Workers Win Raise After Going On Strike

February 19, 2022 James Stout, In These Times. Resist! Sanitation Workers, Strike, Teamsters, Worker Rights and Jobs

Chula Vista, Calif. - “Who are we?” Teamsters! “What do we want?” Contract! “When do we want it?” Now! The sanitation workers of Teamsters Local 542 were still in good voice three weeks into their strike, which began Dec. 17, 2021, even as Republic Services started bringing in nonunion out-of-staters as garbage piled up. Republic had refused the Teamsters’ demands for so long that the city of Chula Vista declared a public health emergency because of the amount of uncollected refuse. Close to 300 workers, many of them Latino or Black, were on strike across three different San Diego County locations. “We want to go back to work,” said Chula Vista picketer Ladere Hampton, “so that we can clean up the city.”

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