• Home
  • Garden City Clerical – 100% Yes!

Garden City Clerical – 100% Yes!

As the heart of the Garden City and Milpitas Sanitation Inc, the Garden City Clerical Unit is responsible for the accounts and is the forefront of customer service as they answer any questions or concerns that customers may have. After months of negotiations, the hard-working clerical unit at Garden City voted unanimously to ratify a new 5-year contract that will raise wages, protect the employees, and reward them for the hard work they achieve on a daily basis.

Virginia Jimenez, a Teamsters Local 350 member of 18 years, was part of the negotiating committee and says that “The negotiation process was very interesting and enlightening. I was able to see firsthand how difficult a negotiation can be and how hard our union representatives work to make sure that we are getting the best possible contract. I feel the biggest challenge was getting the company to recognize that the clerical unit also deserves to make fair wages. Although we are not drivers we are just as important to the company.”

Teamsters Local 350 President and Field Representative for the Solid Waste Division, Larry Daugherty, was at the helm of the negotiation process for the 9-member unit.

“The negotiations were tough, took quite a while and were very contentious at times. However, with Local 350’s strong political program and our members staying united, we were able to deliver the best contract we have negotiated for these members.”

During the initial proposal meeting, the unit made it clear that wages increases, pension increases and most importantly, protection from the company, needed to be addressed.

Brother Daugherty says that in concluding the negotiations, “We were able to get over $7.00 in wage increases, $2.70 in pension increases, full Maintenance of Benefits for their Teamster insurance and included strong contract language that protects our members’ rights over the 5-year contract.

I would like to thank the negotiating committee for calling the Employer out on their attempts to downplay issues in the workplace and keeping them honest. It is a strong victory for the members and we plan on taking these improvements to other Employers as those contracts come up for negotiations.”