Will Boston Set a New Regional Precedent and Finally Pay Recycling Workers a Living Wage?

For the first time in the city’s history, Boston’s living wage ordinance might finally get applied to low-paid workers sorting the city’s recycling—but only sometimes.

Boston is currently negotiating a new five-year contract with Casella Waste Systems, a publicly traded regional agglomerate that runs a major facility in Charlestown. The agreement could cost $6.16 million per year, a steep jump from past prices that has given officials a case of sticker shock, especially since Casella was the only company that submitted a bid. Those high numbers have in some ways overshadowed the wage question for those close to the negotiations; nevertheless, Boston has a fresh chance to address one of the region’s least-known and most vexing labor loopholes for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Casella has maintained it should be exempt from the landmark living wage law, which in Boston calls for any employees working on municipal contracts of a certain size to be paid at least $14.82 per hour (rising to $15.31 later this year). Cambridge, Somerville, and others have their own living wage rates, but have also never applied them to Casella. As uncovered in a 2018 special investigation by DigBoston and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, the company even helped craft the legal argument that some Massachusetts cities have used to give it a pass. Meanwhile, workers handling everything people toss in their recycling bins—a repetitive, high-risk job—are usually making minimum wage or just above.

With the administration of Mayor Marty Walsh set to unveil a new “zero waste” plan soon, labor and environmental advocates in the Zero Waste Boston (ZWB) coalition have grown increasingly adamant this issue be addressed as part of the city’s lofty equity goals.

Read more: https://digboston.com/will-boston-set-a-new-regional-precedent-and-finally-pay-recycling-workers-a-living-wage/