While I was never as much of a supporter of Mike McGinn as, say, the folks at The Stranger, I volunteered with his campaign and was happy with the result. While voting for him didn’t stop the tunnel, I think he’s been good on more issues the city faces than he’s been bad, but there have been plenty of times when he fucked up. So sometimes when he fucks up people will ask me if I regret supporting him. But no I don’t. I honestly can’t think of a single time where having corporate anti-choice conservative Joe Mallahan as mayor would have been better for the city. And I can only count a few times where Nickles might have been better.
And McGinn has handled most of the things a mayor is supposed to handle in the way people want. The roads were clear pretty soon after the snow storm.* Crime has generally been down during his term, although is going up recently, and it’s tough to know how much you can attribute that to any specific policy or set of policies. He helped get more money for the Families and Education levy (you can argue how much is him and how much is, say the council and education activists, but replace him with Mallahan and I don’t see how it doubles). And now he’s helped make sure the garbage strike ended quickly in a way that the union appreciated [h/t to Howie on Facebook].
“Behind the scenes, we’re being told that was really instrumental in getting Waste Management back to the table. That’s what pushed them,” said Heather Weiner, political action director for Washington Teamsters Joint Council 28. Local 117, which represents the 153 recycle drivers who went on strike July 25, overwhelmingly approved a new six-year contract with the company Thursday morning.
Weiner said the calculus of the strike changed when the mayors of Federal Way and Seattle said they intended to hold the company accountable for missed collections.
The cities’ contracts with Waste Management allow them to impose fines for every service missed. Those fines could have amounted to $1.25 million a day in Seattle alone. When the mayors made clear their intention to collect those fines, the strike became more expensive for the company, Weiner said.
…
“We’ve had our differences with the mayor, but he stood up and did what he thought was best for the city,” [Weiner] said. “We’re very grateful that he decided to be public about enforcing the contract. ”
Within hours of the press conference, she said, the company was back at the negotiating table.
Obviously, you can’t know for sure how another person would have handled the situation. But it’s hard to see Mallahan not blaming the union. It’s hard to see this being resolved quickly and efficiently. It’s hard to see Waste Management feeling the same pressure to go back to the table if he was mayor. So I don’t know if I’ll vote for McGinn again. But I don’t regret voting for him last time.
* I would consider using salt one of those fuckups, but it’s clearly what people wanted.
McGinn gets a lot of flack, but he’s shown himself to be an able manager and a bit of a visionary, albeit unorthodox.
The McGinn administration’s use of Twitter as an enforcement tool in the recent sanitation labor action helped move the process along to resolution.
I’ll support McGinn’s reelection.
Last I heard Waste Management wouldn’t negotiate unless the drivers first went back to work. They had months to negotiate with the drivers on those terms, and their “negotiating stance” consisted of “this is our offer; take it or leave it.” So the drivers left. It’s amazing how million-dollar-a-day fines can focus executives’ minds!
Full Disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns Waste Management stock, but who gives a shit about that, yay for the drivers!
Btw, last week Waste Management was advertising for “permanent replacement drivers.” Many companies do that when workers strike, and guess what, when the labor dispute is settled and a new contract is signed with the union (and why would a company sign a union contract if the replacement workers they hired during the strike were satisfactory?), the “permanent” replacement workers (aka strikebreakers) are let go.
Is there anyone out there gullible enough to believe that working as a strikebreaker is a temporary gig? The company needs you only as long as you’re useful as a negotiating ploy; and they show you the door when they don’t need you anymore. Anyone who trusts an employer who is hiring strikebreakers deserves what he inevitably will get.
It’s worth noting that the mayor of Federal Way is Skip Priest, a Republican, which makes the dynamic of him pressuring the bosses at Waste Management kind of interesting.
Picking up on what Roger said @2 & 3, the private company Waste Management was not only wanting to stick it to its own hard working employees to make greater profits. The private company Waste Management was willing to let the residents of Seattle and King County stew in the stench of garbage, put small businesses like restaurants at risk, who require refuse pick up to maintain sanitation, and generally make life for difficult for all of us.
It was a PUBLIC official who HAD TO manage the situation to resolution because the private company, Waste Management did not give a flying f*ck about their contractual obligations nor your health.
Waste Management Inc stock closed up 1.49% today. Remember that while you wait for your stinky trash to be picked up … late.
Priest is one of the handful of Republican electeds in our state that are worth a damn.
Great post Carl.
Mallahan anti-choice? I won’t totally dismiss that, but I would like to see some documentation. I will say that Mallahan, not McGinn was endorsed by the King County Democrats. I believe that Mallahan would have been a better mayor.
Why is there only one company picking up this trash? Why not two, three four or a hundred? Why don’t people get a choice?
@8, That’s a silly joke, right?
@8 The answer to your question is that if multiple trash pickup companies served a neighborhood, and a given driver stopped at only every fifth or eight house — instead of every house — each company’s fuel and labor costs would be much higher and everyone would pay much more for service. This is one case where competition would produce inefficiency instead of efficiency. (In fact, there is competition when disposal companies bid for the city contract, and that’s all the competition you need to get the best pricing from the most efficient operator.)
@7, I was referring to this interview (#3) where he hemmed and hawed when asked about his feelings on abortion. I haven’t listened to the audio since it happened, but I remember it being pretty bad.
EL- cities have the authority under state law to contract for garbage collection, which many, though not all, do. There is competition in the bidding, and the contract have a limited term after which they are rebid. As a side note, counties are prohibited under state law from having collection contract contracts. The UTC issues franchises.
It seems like you are beating a dead horse, Mallahan threw his hat in the ring because he wanted to make changes, he did not win, he has made no noises about running again.
Personally, I think Mallahan had a lot to offer the City. The very fact that he was endorse by KC Democrats would attest to the fact that he was not the Conservative that you make him out to be.
My feeling is that he would be a Centrist, and someone that can talk to all sides and that may not be a bad thing in the midst of an economic crisis.