In December, restoration technicians at the company Garden Cycles voted 13-0 to unionize in order to fight for health care and retirement benefits. The workers, whose company contracts with the city of Seattle under the Green Seattle Partnership , care for the ecosystem by clearing invasive species, such as Himalayan blackberries, and restoring native plants in Seattle’s parks and greenspaces.
According to Samuel Edson, a restoration technician who works for Garden Cycles, they work under grueling, difficult and sometimes even dangerous conditions. Restoration technicians often work on extremely steep slopes, operate heavy machinery and administer toxic herbicide. Seattle has also asked forest technicians to clean up garbage, including human waste and needles, despite it not being part of their main job requirements.
Workplace safety was one of the main factors that encouraged Garden Cycles staff to unionize, Edson said.
“There’s an incredible amount of danger in what we do,” he said.
Because the company operates under thin margins, Edson said that they can’t afford proper blackberry cutters and instead operate more improvised machinery.
“I don’t see us getting the machines that can handle these blades anytime soon,” Edson said. “That [blade] could come flying off, and that could lacerate someone. And that was something that never sat square with anybody on the crew. Everybody [had] big red flags.”
Edson said that management did not adequately take into account...
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