Henri Guyton: Fighting against Midwest Waste Garbage

[Nia Imani]

Henri Guyton


St. Louis, Missouri


“I wasn’t just organizing for myself,” says Henri Guyton, 41, of St. Louis. “I got tired of seeing friends get stepped on.” Now Guyton and four co-workers who exercised their rights by meeting last August to discuss joining forming a union are out of a job.

The men worked for Midwest Waste Garbage, owned by Allied Waste. It’s one of the five largest waste disposal companies in the country, and has contracts with a number of cities. Guyton drove a truck there for 18 months. Like the rest of the company’s truck drivers and helpers, most male and African American, he was willing to work hard. But he wasn’t willing to accept the terrible working conditions. "The place was run like a prison,” says Guyton.

Midwest Waste’s pay scale and benefits had been insufficient for a while. The drivers got two personal days off a year, no sick time, had inadequate medical coverage, and earned just under $15 an hour, no matter how long they’d been on the job (helpers got $11.79). Conditions deteriorated about a year ago when the company hired a new head manager. She installed security cameras everywhere. Drivers’ routes were changed without notice or got longer, and overtime became mandatory. Safety was also a growing issue. It could take a week or more for the company to check out a report that a truck had bad brakes – meanwhile, the driver was still in that truck on the road. When one driver who had been complaining about his truck’s brakes had an accident, the company said it was his fault.

“I thought if we had some union support,” says Guyton, “we’d get better than what we had.”

A clampdown on organizers

Dissatisfied workers contacted the International Brotherhood of Teamster [IBT] and held their first organizing meeting on August 23, 2003. Within a month, the head manager had gotten rid of all five leaders of the effort. “I didn’t know it, but I was being followed by a supervisor driving a personal vehicle,” says Guyton. “On September 10, I was fired. They said I’d backed up on the wrong side of my garbage truck – something everyone does. Something management said in the past people would not be fired for.” Other organizers also were followed and fired for small infractions that never had been punished before.

In October, the St. Louis Jobs with Justice Workers' Rights Board sent a letter about the head manager’s actions to Midwestern Waste. The company fired her, but didn’t rehire the men who’d been let go. “It scared the workers,” says Guyton. “Everybody needs a job.” Unfair labor practice charges were filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Meanwhile, the company, which had hired a unionbusting firm in response to organizing efforts at another plant, sent out letters telling workers all the reasons they didn’t really need a union.

Fighting on

Henri Guyton, who supports a wife, daughter, stepdaughter and grandchild, is still looking for a job. “My bank account’s gone,” he says. But the fight to organize isn’t over at Midwestern Waste, where NLRB charges are still pending, and five new activist workers have replaced those who were fired. “Nothing’s changed there,” says Guyton. “It won’t without a union.”

Source: http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/....cfm?storyID=5

[IfasehunReincarnated]

I dont recall any local papers running this story at all.