Beverly Officials Decry Broken Promises, Eye Financial Recourse Amid Trash Strike

BEVERLY, MA — Broken promises, potential alternative collection plans and financial recourse for resources the city has burned during the 22-day sanitation workers' strike were the main discussion points during a Beverly City Council special meeting on Tuesday night on the work stoppage between Teamsters Local Union 25 and Republic Services.

"When this all started," Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill said, "there were assurances made to all of the communities involved that Republic was working incredibly hard to come to a labor agreement prior to the contract expiring, and that if there were any type of work stoppage, they kept reinforcing to us that they were a national presence and that they are, as we've found out, the second largest waste and recycling hauler in the nation. So they kept talking about how they would bring assets in from around the region and around the country.

"While we might see a slight delay in the first few days of any job action, they would be up and running at full capacity within a week. ... When it became clear that they weren't doing that, we had to step up with other measures."

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Cahill credited the Department of Public Services for facilitating recycling dropoff dates and helping out-of-town Republic haulers learn the Beverly routes and play catch-up from days of missed streets. But he added that it has become clear that local Republic supervisors working to mitigate the situation are not being supported by the national organization with the resources necessary to get the job done.

Officials from six North Shore and Greater Boston cities and towns were in Salem Superior Court on Tuesday to press their case for health violation citations and additional resources from Republic Services amid the 22-day-old sanitation workers' strike.

Last week, Beverly, Malden, Gloucester, Peabody, Danvers and Canton officials filed the complaint for injunctive relief to abate the public health nuisance resulting from what the communities called "Republic's failure to adequately collect and dispose of trash and recycling in our communities."

"When it was clear that they weren't going to commit to what they had promised," Cahill said, "and when they were crying poor in terms of resources, we needed to remind them that they had been touting their scale and their ability to deliver. So we brought that case to their corporate leadership.

"And they haven't delivered yet."

Cahill said one of the greatest concerns has been commercial dumpster emptying since those businesses often have food and other garbage that attracts rodents and creates a public health concern when not serviced.

Cahill said efforts to bring in alternative haulers have run into roadblocks from companies that would view that as a "hostile action" toward picketing Teamsters, or those who said it would take time to scale up their operations to properly serve a city the size of Beverly, preventing any immediate relief.

The city's contract with Republic Services expires next summer.

"We've been asking daily since July 7: 'When are you going to start recycling?'" Cahill said. "And the answer has been: 'We can't. We can't. We don't have the resources.' ... They are claiming that they will be able to start curbside recycling around the 14 communities more holistically by later this week. We're continuing to push on that."

Cahill said that while recycling drop-off days have gone well within the city, Republic has been lacking or delayed in actually coming and getting the full recycling dumpsters, and hauling them away following the drop-off dates.

"Republic has promised many times — and they promised again (on Monday) more resources by later this week," Cahill said. "We're looking at that. We're pushing on whatever levers we have. The job action itself, the strike, the labor dispute, the only other thing is for that to be settled.

"And we don't hear much. They've only had a couple of (bargaining) sessions over the last week face-to-face."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)