Editor’s Note: This commentary is by Ron Jacobs, a Winooski resident who works in Burlington. He is the current president of AFSCME Union Local 1343.
I write this as the president of AFSCME Union Local 1343. One group of workers that AFSCME 1343 represents is those who work for the city of Burlington (excluding first responders, police and Burlington Electric Dept. workers). As a member and president of Local 1343, I know union workers to be the most dependable and the most answerable to the populations they serve. In recent weeks, a growing number of articles in the media have discussed a pending vote by the Burlington City Council regarding the future of waste disposal and recycling in Burlington.
As it currently stands, these services are handled by a combination of city departments and private contractors. The City of Burlington picks up most recycling. Many landlords and individual homeowners contract with private waste management companies to take care of their trash and compost. Others take care of it themselves, making occasional visits to different waste management facilities run by the Chittenden County Solid Waste District. This mishmash of private and public systems creates extra traffic on the city’s roads and a consequent increase in pollution and congestion. Calling the current system of waste management in Burlington a system is a misnomer.
At an upcoming Burlington City Council meeting, there will be a vote on whether or not Burlington should begin consolidating its waste management and recycling into a municipally owned system managed by the city and staffed by city employees. Alternatively, all or some of this process would be outsourced to a private for-profit company under contract to the city. AFSCME 1343 supports the former proposal.
AFSCME 1343 opposes the outsourcing of a vital service like waste management. Foremost among our reasons (and likely the most important to Burlington residents) is accountability. That is, accountability to the residents of Burlington and accountability to the taxpayers of Burlington. Now, I am not completely clear who are the stockholders of Casella waste management or other potential private contractors, but I do know that for-profit companies must, by the nature of our economic system, show a profit and answer to their stockholders or they fall. In other words, they must answer to their owners before they answer to the public they are contracted to serve. This is true no matter how good a for-profit enterprise is perceived.
A municipally owned waste management unit would be answerable to the residents of Burlington. As a memo from the management team in charge of the city department that would oversee a city-run waste management unit acknowledges, “[This plan offers the] Most City control. City could choose to adjust service levels and product offerings when it deemed such changes were warranted. [A city run system] Offers more direct operational oversight as employees and services are managed directly by City.” See the entire memo here.
The only benefit I can see with outsourcing all or part of this process is that it would make it easier on the City to set up, and the setup process from beginning to roll-out might be a year less than the time required to establish a municipally run facility. This shorter set-up time does not make up for the dependability of service and accountability that the residents of Burlington would experience once a municipally owned and operated waste management system was in place. I implore the council not to exchange a year or so of work and time for a loss of accountability and control over the way the City of Burlington manages its waste.
The members of AFSCME 1343 across the city are more than just people working for a paycheck. We work to make this city a good place to live. We believe a City Council vote to approve a municipally owned consolidated waste program operated by a workforce of AFSCME 1343 members would show a long-term commitment to the desire for a livable city that we share with its residents and officials.
