LFG

Soccermom is right, collections and the landfill are two separate entities. One affects the other, but they are not dependent on each other. We do just as much commercial business as we do residential. Google "National Labor Relations Act" and look under "Employee Rights". Much of that section is dedicated to give workers the right to form a union, but non-union employees also have rights: Activity Outside a Union Employees who are not represented by a union also have rights under the NLRA. Specifically, the National Labor Relations Board protects the rights of employees to engage in “concerted activity”, which is when two or more employees take action for their mutual aid or protection regarding terms and conditions of employment. A single employee may also engage in protected concerted activity if he or she is acting on the authority of other employees, bringing group complaints to the employer’s attention, trying to induce group action, or seeking to prepare for group action. A few examples of protected concerted activities are: Two or more employees addressing their employer about improving their pay. Two or more employees discussing work-related issues beyond pay, such as safety concerns, with each other. An employee speaking to an employer on behalf of one or more co-workers about improving workplace conditions. More information, including descriptions of actual concerted activity cases, is available on the protected concerted activity page. What that means is that if an employee approaches the employer with safety concerns on behalf of themselves and at least one more person, then retaliation, demotion, reduction of hours, firing, schedule change, etc... are all illegal. If an employee raised a legitimate concern and was fired, that employee could sue

The only thing that will slow down the winter garden here is snow, but the greens will pop back up as soon as it thaws. 6 inches is a blizzard here. The state will shut down, every ditch will be full of cars, and kids will be out of school for a week

This is exactly what is going to happen, I just worry that it will be done quietly. OSHA fined the max allowable, but the conclusions drawn in that report leave the door wide open for lawyers

Theoretically a landfill can close for a short time due to an emergency. Maybe a few weeks, but all of the garbage would have to be rerouted to other landfills at an enormously higher cost. In the case of a strike there is a contingency plan that could be put into action very quickly. You can't just walk off of a landfill and leave garbage exposed, even if no new garbage is coming in. It would have to be, at a minimum, covered

Don't forget the hurricanes, though. You have to take the good with the bad

Also, the federal government gives workers protection from retribution, retaliation, discrimination, etc..., and by law those rules have to be posted in a highly visible place available to all employees. You ever walk into a business and see a bulletin board up with a lot of legal looking posters and printouts on it? Look on the wall behind the drive through window at a fast food restaurant. Stop and read a few of them sometime, that's what that is. Those rules have numbers to call with complaints. There are options

That's assuming the employees knew how dangerous it was, or didn't want to go back up there. It is management's job to know what is happening in that landfill, and if the employees weren't afraid, then it wouldn't have come up in a union meeting. I understand what you are saying, but a union doesn't decide what happens in a landfill operationally. If that landfill were unionized and the employees went on strike, there would be operators brought in from other landfills, possibly from anywhere in the nation, to keep the operation running. You can't just close a landfill, it would impact every home and business within a 75 mile radius. There are contingency plans for a strike. The landfill has to operate

I don't want the core issue of this tragedy to become a union debate. A union wouldn't have prevented that collapse. I don't blame the collapse entirely on the owners of the landfill, it's an industry wide problem. There are certain materials that make a landfill unstable. Those materials bring in a lot of money. There are no rules set in stone on how much you can take, or how to integrate that material into a landfill. The onus isn't even completely on the landfill. The producers of that material could be forced to change the consistency of the material, which would also be very expensive. Many landfills are currently sliding to a certain degree. Greentree is the first implosion of an entire cell I have heard of, and things were done there that compounded the problem, but the root cause of that collapse is a festering problem that gets worse every year. As more municipalities push to recycle and compost normal municipal solid waste, less MSW is available to mix with the special wastes to stabilize them. That's fine, recycling and composting are good things, but when the makeup of a waste stream changes that dramatically, steps need to be taken to ensure the safety of the operators. I want Greentree to be a warning sign to the industry, not just the owners. These landfills are designed to hold this waste forever, we are still learning what happens at the bottom of a pile that is 200 feet tall and 30 years old, and the current waste stream is far different than what it was then. The entire industry needs to take a deep breath and look at what we are doing to the sustainability of our landfills. Greentree should be a watershed moment

I have purposely been avoiding this thread because of the geographical difference, but it was really interesting reading. Finally getting ripe tomatoes on Aug. 28? Lord, by the first of August I'm ready for everything to just die . I usually plant just before or on Easter, everything is beautiful in June, and by August the thrill is gone. Now it's time to start thinking about the Winter garden, which interestingly enough sounds like what you guys just call a garden. Leafy greens, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc... You can't grow that stuff in the summer down here, it does best in the fall and early winter. I'll plant in September, have fresh broccoli casserole for Thanksgiving, then a good supply of kale, turnip greens, and collard greens until it all warms up and goes to seed in the spring. I even plant 2 patches of kale just to keep the chickens in something green through the winter

Don't you start... so many replies...

Ours is 4 years old with 7000 miles on it. She drives my truck if weather conditions aren't perfect I can understand buying a 2500, but not repeatedly. The point of having a diesel is to put some miles on it

We don't have kids, so our cars are what we splurge on. I have my truck, my wife has a nice Vette. People see that Vette and make the stupid "You can't hide money" remark, but they don't give the truck a second thought. People don't realize new diesels cost more than a new Corvette

I'll trade you 2 dozen already laying for the 17

What package? I love those new body styles. ETA: Oh, never mind, you said LT. Sweet If I was the grandbaby I'd wait for that one over that 'Stang

That may well be the case, and exactly what they need, I just have no experience with unions. I've tried to look at this whole situation like how I would handle it if it happened here

No, mr.d. Just... no

I know I've said before, but I started with 4 feed store chicks. Chicken math is a dangerous subject...

My truck before the King Ranch was a 2008 Silverado 2500HD. I should have kept that truck, pre EGR and DEF, sweetest driving and riding 3/4 ton I've ever been in. I'd be all over one of those if I could find one with lower miles, even if the price is still up there

After what happened in Feb., I wouldn't feel very secure... Don't get me wrong, that's easy for me to say when I don't know the area, don't know how hard it is to find a job, and just because we haven't heard from them doesn't mean they are being silent. I just wish that this would turn into a referendum on certain aspects of our industry rather than being a local issue that just disappears, but that is already happening. I said last week that the OSHA report would allow everyone else to say "they handled it wrong", and that is pretty much the response I get when discussing the story with others here

How are the girls, Petee? I kept 6, and moved them in with my blue rooster and his 3 girls from last year yesterday. No slow introdution, just straight in the pen. It's a big pen, and the new girls outnumber the old ones, so I knew there was a good chance that fighting would be minimal. There is a little pecking if the new girls get too close to the old ones, and I had to put the new girls on the roost last night, but it has been so funny watching Blue walk up to them and do his little dance Their combs are starting to pink up a little, hopefully we will start getting eggs by October

This is my fear of a union. I wouldn't want that as an operator, and I definitely don't want that as a manager. Typically when a union gets a foot in the door down here, that's where it starts. A disgruntled employee. That's why I run my landfill the way I do. My men respect me, and I respect them. I was an operator once, too, and I treat them the way I would want to be treated. I take ownership of my operation, and my men take ownership of their jobs. We don't want an outside group to be the mediator. I would imagine the operators there are the same way. If they are like a typical landfill, they have all been working there for years. I see much less turnover in the waste industry than I did in construction. Most operators I know at my landfill and others have been there 10+ years. Chances are the operators were there before the current owners were. That's why I don't understand the silence...

I disagree about the cells. Those are designed by engineers, and constructed by third party contractors. They are heavily monitored by third party inspectors during all phases to meet federal requirements. Waste companies don't have the equipment to build cells, cells have to meet federal regulations before they are certified. What happens in the cell after construction is a different story, and that's where the issue is that I have been complaining about since February. Like I said, I'm not debating the validity of a union, this is not a union issue

I can see where the safety aspect of the union could be beneficial, especially if the company, or certain employees of the company, were committing unsafe acts, but a safety committee couldn't have prevented that collapse. I have a safety committee at my landfill, and we aren't union. You wouldn't believe the safety and HR training that I am required to attend every year. That's an operations issue, and ultimately the operations of a landfill are the call of the manager. If the operators were told to do something that was unsafe, and they knew it was unsafe, then maybe a committee would have helped. If the operators didn't know, nothing would have changed. It's not the responsibility of the operators to safely construct a landfill, that's not what they are paid to do. There are operations plans, fill sequences, that are designed by engineers that have to be followed. The engineers don't communicate with the employees, that's what I am paid to do

It could well be that a union would have protected the employees if they walked off, but highly doubtful that a union could have prevented that collapse. Does a union have any control over work practices? I don't know, I'm just not experienced with them. I know that people knew it was moving, but I don't know how scared they were. There was video, even after the collapse, of an operator riding a loader around the rim of the crater when someone called him down. I can't imagine that anyone actually thought the entire cell would collapse. Maybe they weren't scared, I just don't know. Even without a union, there are anti-retaliation laws to protect employees. I would assume there is an HR department where employees can voice concerns anonymously. Our HR hotline number is posted beside the time clock. Unions are not big in the south, not because we run them out, but because as employers we try to provide a workplace where employees don't feel like they need them. OSHA has a whistleblower section on their website where you can voice concerns anonymously. It's not like these companies have total control over employees and can do anything they want, there are laws to protect them.

Let me put it this way, I'm the manager. If they feel unsafe, and I tell them to continue working, it's my fault if something happens...