If you were shopping at A&M Discount market in Staten Island last fall, the waste produced at the store where you bought your milk, eggs, and cat food may have contributed to Sidney Marthone losing part of his middle finger when he picked up the garbage the morning of November 10.
“I tried to empty the containers in the back of the truck,” says Marthone. “They were damaged, they slipped, and my finger got caught between the broken container and the back of the truck. It cut the end off.”
Now the Teamsters Union Local 813 is giving a middle finger to most of the 200 private waste-hauling companies in the city like the one that employed Marthone.
“You got laws in effect now, but these companies don’t abide by any of those rules as the system currently stands because they don’t fear the fines,” says Allan Henry, a labor organizer for Teamsters Local 813.