Teamsters end Seattle garbage strike faster than you can say “that stinks!”

Almost as soon as it started, they're throwing in the towel...raising the white flag...calling it quits.  The Teamsters gave an unconditional offer to return to work thereby calling off their Seattle-are strike against Waste Management only a day and a half after they walked off the job.

Union garbage haulers who service King and Snohomish counties have offered to return to work unconditionally at midnight Thursday, and their employer, Waste Management, said it weclomes the workers back.

The union and the company are also slated to return to the negotiation table on Monday, according to a Waste Management news release.

"We are glad the Teamsters have announced that they will return to work tomorrow, but feel that this unfortunate situation could have been avoided entirely had the union simply responded to our earlier request to meet," said Jackie Lang of Waste Management in the news release. "We look forward to our drivers returning to work tomorrow to provide Friday collection services as scheduled."

Union representantives said they plan to have about 700 sanitation workers resume normal operations Friday morning to catch up on the backlog from Wednesday's work stoppage.

In a statement, Rick Hicks, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 174 said the union was concerned that a continued strike could induce the company to lock out members.

Since they were already on strike, there would be no point to locking them out.  However, permanently replacing them has always been a possibility.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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