Union workers, trash company end strike after reaching deal

Call it the trash day truce.

After more than two months of striking, Teamsters Local 25 reached an agreement on a new contract with Republic Services, the company that provides trash collection for several Greater Boston communities, according to both sides.

“We look forward to our employees returning to work on Monday and quickly resuming normal operations,” said Kurt Lavery, a vice president with Republic. “We will work tirelessly to restore our customers’ trust.”

“During the strike we never lost hope that we would reach an agreement that would benefit our members," said Local 25 President Tom Mari in the same statement. "We are now ready to return to work and provide the best service possible to Republic’s customers.”

Details of the five-year contract were not immediately released by either side.

The deal ends a summer-long strike that was filled with lawsuits, finger pointing and piles of fetid trash filling cans and dumpsters. Workers walked off the job July 1, demanding better salaries and improved working conditions in their new contract. Republic insisted it was ready to bargain even as the union accused company negotiators of dragging their heels. A federal mediator held multiple negotiation sessions.

All the while, frustrated residents would drag their trash cans out to the curb when instructed to do so, only to see the piles sit and fester as promised trucks failed to appear. Several municipalities unsuccessfully sued, demanding the company clean up the refuse and pay the towns for their own costs in picking up the trash hauler's slack.

Republic's lawyers also rushed to the courthouse, trying and failing at least twice to convince a judge that the striking workers were menacing managers and replacement drivers.

Even property owners got into the legal fray, accusing Republic of breach of contract for failing to empty dumpsters at a Brookline apartment building. Republic said if anyone was in in breach, it was the property owner, who hired a different trash company to pick up the refuse Republic couldn't.