Solidarity with the over 2,000 sanitation workers and rank-and-file Teamsters at Republic Services who have launched a powerful and growing nationwide strike—beginning with 450 workers in Massachusetts and now spreading as thousands more join the strike or refuse to cross solidarity picket lines across the country.

Republic Services raked in $2.04 billion in profits last year. On average, it made nearly $50,000 in PROFIT per worker—while refusing to pay wages that cover the skyrocketing cost of living or even match basic industry standards. Republic is the second-largest sanitation company in North America. Last year, in addition to its gargantuan profits, Republic handed $1.18 billion to its wealthy shareholders and paid its CEO, Jon Vander Ark, nearly $13 million—almost 300 times more than a frontline sanitation worker.

@wrkrsstrikeback and I stand in solidarity with workers’ demands for: 

• Wages on par with industry competitors like Capitol Waste Services—which would mean raises of at least $5–8 more per hour than what Republic is currently offering.
  
• 100% employer-paid healthcare, increased pension contributions, and guaranteed paid sick days and vacation time.
  
• A 3-year contract instead of the company’s proposed 5-year deal, to put Republic workers on the same contract schedule as Capitol, so as to enable the workers at the competing companies to fight together in 2028.
  
• Safe staffing levels, protections from excessive heat and toxic exposure, and fairer start times and overtime policies—including consistent enforcement of health and safety standards on the job.
  
• An end to Republic’s union-busting tactics, including threats against workers, use of strikebreakers, and the absence of binding protections for workers who honor picket lines in solidarity.

Rather than meeting these basic demands, Republic continues to deny workers quality healthcare, safe working conditions, and the basic right to retire with dignity. They’re attempting to lock workers into a long-term deal that keeps wages low and fails to provide the benefits they need. 

Using the predictable divide-and-conquer strategy, the Republic bosses are bringing in non-unionized workers to try to crush the strike. The only way for the labor movement to defeat the bosses in their attempt to divide the working class is to fight for higher wages and benefits and better working conditions for all workers. This will mean massively expanded unionization drives to fight against the nationwide race to the bottom the whole working class is facing as the billionaires get richer.

Workers Strike Back and I join Teamsters Local 25 in Massachusetts in calling on working people affected by the strike to build community pressure to help force the bosses at Republic to give the company’s sanitation workers the same wages and fully-funded health coverage that workers have won at rival waste companies. Working people should join picket lines where they can. What’s also needed is mass public rallies and coordinated community action to help workers shut down the profits of Republic Services, including by organizing to STOP any Republic Services trucks that are attempting to break the strike.

Sanitation workers face some of the deadliest working conditions in the country. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, refuse and recycling collectors were the fourth most dangerous job in 2023, with a shocking fatality rate of 41.4 deaths per 100,000 workers—far higher than the national average. These workers are literally putting their lives on the line while the company funnels billions to executives and Wall Street investors.

Workers need to stand together and shut Republic down nationally. Every union, every working person should support this strike—on the picket lines, with walkouts and mass rallies. 

Public services like sanitation and trash collection should be brought fully into democratic public ownership, with guarantees of good wages, free healthcare, and a strong pension. We need unity between public-sector and private-sector workers against the attacks on the labor movement from big corporations like Republic Services, from Trump and the Republicans in Congress, and also from the Democratic Party, which has carried out vicious cuts of its own in cities and states across the country. An injury to one is an injury to all!