IUOE Local 139 workers have voted for a strike against GFL Environmental/Everglades Holding LLC, owners of the Seven Mile Creek landfill. | Martin Lopez/Pexels
IUOE Local 139 workers have voted for a strike against GFL Environmental/Everglades Holding LLC, owners of the Seven Mile Creek landfill. | Martin Lopez/Pexels
After year-long negotiations stalled, heavy-equipment operators at the Eau Claire County landfill walked off the job on May 4 in a dispute centered on better wages and benefits.
Workers could be seen walking the picket line and holding up signs near the Seven Mile Creek landfill as the first day of the work stoppage unfolded, a WQOW news report said. The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 139, unanimously voted for the operating engineers who run the heavy machinery at the landfill to strike. The union has also filed an unfair labor practice against GFL Environmental/Everglades Holding LLC, owners of the landfill.
"Our job as the operating engineers Local 139 representing them, is to bring up their standard of living, better their lives, that's what unions do," Michael Ervin, organizing director of IUOE Local 139, told WQOW. "Try to better people lives, try to get them better healthcare to take care of their families, and a better future with a pension."
GFL management is now running the heavy equipment at the landfill in the striking workers' place, Ervin said.
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