NYC’s Private Garbage Industry Is Getting Overhauled. Can a Notorious Teamsters Local Clean Up Again?

Just after 4 one morning in the fall of 2019, long before COVID-19 upended New York City’s trash-hauling industry, a non-union sanitation worker and two organizers for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters convened over orange juice in a booth at the Bronx’s Rainbow Diner. “Did they give you uniforms and other stuff that they was required to?” asked Allan Henry. The young driver scoffed. “They gave me nuffin’! No boots, no gloves. Nuffin’! They barely gave me a JOB!”

The three men ran through the lamentable particulars before the young worker,...