A unionized company that contracts with Montgomery County for trash pickup says it unfairly lost a bid for some of the work to a nonunion company and will lay off workers if the county doesn’t reconsider.
On Tuesday, members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), which represents employees of Unity Disposal and Recycling, demonstrated outside the executive office building in Rockville.
Unity argues that while it submitted the lowest bid for picking up trash from homes in an area of Silver Spring, the county awarded the contract to Republic Services. Unity’s final bid was $17.72 per home per month, while Republic’s was $20.23.
Kristin Draper, an attorney representing Unity, said the company takes issue with the way points were awarded to each of the two companies, among other things, and that it protested the decision.
The county’s procurement director, Avinash Shetty, wrote to Draper on May 2 challenging the protest, saying that no irregularities had occurred and that price was only one aspect of choosing the best company to provide trash service.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Jennifer Barrios over at the Washington Post