Garbage workers in the Bay Area overwhelmingly approved a new contract with Waste Management Inc. on Saturday, ending a bitter 26-day lockout that fouled neighborhoods with overflowing piles of trash and triggered warnings of threats to public health. Members of Teamsters Local 70 voted 363-3 to ratify the contract, which kept protections on health care and on honoring picket lines but added new disciplinary guidelines, which the union initially had resisted. The union workers will end the messy tenure of more than 500 replacement workers, many flown in prior to the lockout, who have been regularly accused of missing or ignoring entire neighborhoods.
See "Lockout ends as garbage workers OK new contract", Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, San Francisco Chronicle, July 29, 2007