Dive Brief:
- 450 sanitation employees in DeKalb County, Georgia will now have Teamsters Union Local 728 as union representatives.
- County commissioners also changed an ordinance that now makes possible for workers to bring issues directly to Human Resources instead of requiring them to address it with department heads.
- The workers will not receive full union representation such as collective bargaining rights or be able to legally strike.
Dive Insight:
According to WABE, Ben Speight, a Teamsters organizer, stated that "these workers have been fighting for a union… since the early 1970s." One worker alleges that the facility has been understaffed for years and work is performed using unsafe equipment.
