More than 65 workers from Meadow Carting Corp., a Westbury-based garbage company serving many North Shore municipalities, including the Town of North Hempstead, went on strike on Monday, seeking higher wages and better benefits.
Town and village officials said the strike disrupted or delayed trash collection in certain areas.
The workers, who are represented by the National Organization of Industrial Trade Unions, have been picketing Meadow’s main building at 581 Dickens St. in Westbury since Monday, when they rejected the company’s proposed contract. The last contract expired on Friday.
“We’re out here to try and get better benefits and better pay,” said Marco Garcia, a Meadow employee for 11 years. “We haven’t gotten a raise in nine years.”
Garcia said the Meadow management tells its workers, “If you don’t like it, here’s the door.”
Anthony E. Core, a lawyer representing Meadow, did not respond to a request for comment.
Gerard Jones, the president of the National Organization of Industrial Trade Unions, said the workers are fighting for $1 more an hour and for Meadow to pay a larger portion for health benefits.
“We’re trying to get the employer and attorney back to the table as soon as we can to resolve this,” Jones said. “When the workers are out of work, they still have bills to pay, car payments and insurance, and we want to get them back as soon as possible.”
Jones would not disclose how much workers earn, but some employees said they take home around $550 a week.
Meadow has hired nonunion workers to continue garbage pickup, village officials and striking workers said.
It was not clear if Meadow has resumed pickup in all of its areas.
Garbage was picked up on Monday but later than normal, a village official from Port Washington North said.
Under the Town of North Hempstead’s contract with Meadow, garbage is picked up in Great Neck and New Cassel, but villages in the town have their own contracts with the carting company.
“The town has been notified that Meadow Carting, which collects garbage for five of the town’s garbage districts, is experiencing a work stoppage by some of its workforce,” a town statement said. “As a result, there have been disruptions in regular collections. Residents are advised that your garbage collection may be delayed as Meadow Carting works to complete their routes.”
The town is providing updates on garbage pickup on its website.
Four Port Washington villages, Manorhaven, Baxter Estates, Flower Hill and Port Washington North, also use Meadow for trash pickup.
Meadow also picks up garbage in North Hills, Munsey Park, the Village of Plandome, Great Neck Estates, Lake Success, Russell Gardens and Saddle Rock, as well as other municipalities in Nassau County.
Emmanuel Plasencia, who has worked for Meadow for five years, said he and other employees work six days a week but are only paid for 40 hours of work.
“We run to get the garbage,” he said. “We don’t walk. We hustle and we do a good job.”
Plasencia said Meadow does not provide its workers with uniforms but requires certain attire and boots to be worn.
“They don’t give you anything,” Plasencia said. “No one can live on Long Island with this pay. And there is no overtime pay either.”
Workers said they expected to be striking beyond Tuesday.
These guys need our support. They work hard and don’t get thanked. How can we help?
These guys work hard and pretty much without thanks. We need to support them. How can we help?
Donate money
These guys need the people to back them up. Give them what they want and then some. They deserve nothing but the best. These guus finish before 11 thats how good they work and i respect them for all the hard work they put in. With out the employees theres no company. There the key to that business and they need to het treated like it
Hardest working group of people that I know!!!
Wow, the Meadow Carting Corp is pathetic. They are just asking for a $1 raise for their hourly wage… How big of a loss can that be?
If there are 100, for the sake of being a good number for calculation and addressing those who are afraid of losing their job if they join the strike, employees for the carting services, in the North Shore municipalities, adding $1 would decrease the profit margin by 500 in an hour. Now from this source (https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-garbage-collector-do-in-a-typical-work-day) this woman who works at the city council states that generally they work from 6am ~ 3pm with breaks after 2 ~ 3 hours (i’m assuming they are 30 minutes of unpaid breaks and also assuming that it happens every 3 hours because, alas, you know how corporations are)
So 6am to 9am – a 30 minute break, 9:30am to 12:30pm – another 30 minute break, then 1pm to 3pm.
Total hour in a day (roughly and tentative, with no overtime): 8 hours
The article states that “some employees said they take home around $550 a week” (assuming that its all from the garbage collecting job) If that were the case, and that they only have this one physical laboring job they would have to work 7 times in a week with 8 hours minimum, and the 2017 $10 minimum wage. (I know the math comes to $560, but you know the tax and everything would probably lower it down to $520/530) Calculate that to their annual salary: $29,120 (before tax) (and without complicating things such considering leap years)
Now if we add $1 to their hourly wages: $616 a week (before tax) and $32,032 a year (before tax)
The difference of the annual salary between a $10 hourly wage and an $11 hourly wage is $2912. (Let’s just make it $3000)
with the $3000 annual salary, on let’s just say, 100 employees in the North Shore municipalities (because let’s be real I’m pretty sure there are some that just didn’t want to go on strike to preserve their job) comes to: $300,000 deficit in the Corp’s paper comparing to the $10 wages.
Now according to (https://www.manta.com/c/mm8633t/meadow-carting-corporation) and it states that “Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $1,268,906 and employs a staff of approximately 10” which probably doesn’t even cover other municipalities. But look at that 1.2 million to 10 employee ratio. Make that 100 employee throughout other municipalities and it’s a 12.6 million annual revenue. A mere $300,000 deficit in the $12,689,060 is such a small number in their lenses.
Now this is a private company with millions in revenue. A mere $300k, not even half a million, should be no problem to give up.
(Discretion advised for language)
I do not care about internal politics in this case, but they, the corporate, are pretty pathetic. They gotta loosen up their tight little @§§ for a change. (Excuse the leet language)