Leaders of the Greater Boston communities where trash is piling up say they are feeling the financial burden of the ongoing sanitation worker strike, threatening to press fines against Republic Services.
Striking members of Teamsters Local 25 and the waste management giant are not negotiating this weekend, pushing off next conversations until Tuesday after the sides failed to settle on an agreement on Friday.
As municipal leaders say their concerns grow by the day amid the dispute, they are demanding that Republic Services “provide accurate and updated timelines and service expectations” and “expand driver resources and logistical support to guarantee the daily completion of all trash and recycling routes.”
Their demands and concerns are outlined in a letter that they sent to the company on Friday, while striking workers and Republic Services accused each other of not taking their proposals seriously.
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Officials from Gloucester, Danvers, Beverly, Canton, Ipswich, Lynnfield, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, North Reading, Peabody, Swampscott, Wakefield, Watertown all signed onto the letter.
“Our communities are already bearing the cost of this disruption, both in personnel and material resources, as we work to mitigate the impacts of the service interruption and delay in full service resumption,” the letter states. “It is entirely reasonable – and necessary – for municipalities to take steps to secure alternative services that protect public health and maintain basic standards of cleanliness and safety.”
“We fully intend to seek appropriate compensation for the consequential damages and expenses incurred as a direct result of Republic Services’ failure to meet its obligations,” the officials added.
They highlighted that they are tracking the costs, including labor and emergency response efforts, to “determine the full extent of the financial burden.”
In an update on Saturday, Local 25 President Tom Mari stated that the union met with Republic Services at the request of a federal mediator on Friday, with the unsuccessful negotiation session ending after 9.5 hours.
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Mari added that the union wanted to continue bargaining over the weekend.
“I feel bad for the citizens in the cities and towns serviced by Republic,” he stated. “We have no idea why Republic refused to meet for another three days, but we will show up Tuesday morning ready to agree to a contract that brings Republic’s employees up to the standards we’ve established for the employees of Capitol and Boston Carting.”
Republic Services says its proposed nearly 16% immediate wage increase and roughly 43% pay increase over five years, offered on Friday, “outpaces competitors.” According to the company, payroll data shows that almost half of the Boston regional union members already earn six-figure salaries annually.
The company also claims the union is attempting to force workers out of the “zero-premium healthcare plan” offered by Republic and into the “Teamsters’ health and welfare plan, which offers no significant benefit at a substantially higher cost.”
The sides have met for 11 days, twice with a federal mediator, who requested mediation to continue on Tuesday, according to Republic Services.
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“When a wage proposal this significant is combined with zero-premium healthcare and generous retirement contributions,” the company stated in an update Friday night, “there is no question who is responsible for this ongoing strike: Teamsters Local 25 and its president Tom Mari.
“It is time for the Teamsters to get serious about negotiations so our employees can return to work,” the company added.
Greater Boston is not the only region in the country dealing with heaping trash piles.
Mari has said roughly 4,000 Teamsters are refusing to report to work nationally until Republic Services “bargains fair and equitable contracts.”
Dozens of state lawmakers are also pressuring Republic Services to settle on a contract with Teamsters Local 25, which represents more than 400 members employed by the company.
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“As legislators, we are disappointed to learn that despite multiple meetings, Republic Services has failed to meet basic community standards,” they stated in a letter to the company on Friday.
Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill said in a memo to residents in his North Shore city that officials there had to direct Republic Services to a “number of streets they had repeatedly missed,” noting “we have seen good results, particularly in the downtown.”
The company is also running a day behind schedule, the mayor added.
“I, together with Mayors and Town Administrators from the other 13 communities impacted by this labor dispute between Republic and their drivers and collectors unions, are working together and pushing for Republic to get more drivers into our communities,” Cahill said, “because Republic is not fulfilling their contracts with any of our fourteen cities and towns or with their many commercial customers in our communities.”
Leaders from the affected communities told Republic Services in their letter that they are dealing with more than just the mounting financial burden, as they “deploy emergency responses, address overflow issues, and fill service gaps.”
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“At the same time,” they added, “environmental conditions are deteriorating, with uncollected trash affecting neighborhoods, parks, and waterways. Public health concerns are escalating, particularly as restaurants struggle without a viable waste solution during the peak of their busy season.”
Holiday deliveries are stacking up on Boston doorsteps and police warn that means porch pirate season is back.
In the past year, one in four Americans was a victim of package theft with losses averaging between $50 and $100 per incident, according data in a report on package thefts in 2025 from security.org.
December is the peak month for porch pirates, with households receiving 10 more packages on average at the end of the year than at the start, the report found. Additionally, those who live in apartments and condos are over three times as likely to have packages stolen than people in single-family homes.
The crimes are something Boston residents are no stranger to.
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During the holiday season in 2024, South Boston was terrorized by an individual the Boston Police Department dubbed the “Tom Brady of Porch Pirates.”
A 34-year-old woman named Kerri Flynn was arrested in connection with the thieveries on Christmas Eve 2024, after a Boston police cadet saw her in South Boston holding two bags stuffed with unopened packages.
Prosecutors ultimately dismissed her charges related to the South Boston thefts, as she pleaded guilty to charges in two other larceny cases. Flynn was sentenced to a year of probation with conditions to remain drug-free with screens and undergo a substance abuse evaluation with treatment.
To avoid another season of stolen gifts, Boston police are urging residents to take precautions and released a video on the topic Thursday.
The department advises to track deliveries and be home — or ask a neighbor — to grab them, or use secure options like lockers or scheduled drop-offs. Police also say to install a doorbell camera and immediately report any missing items, regardless of price or size.
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Carriers like Amazon, FedEx, UPS and USPS also have a few more pieces of advice, like requiring signatures for high-value items and to avoid leaving packages out overnight.
Amazon recommends using Lockers or Hub Counters and enabling Photo-on-Delivery, while UPS suggests signing up for My Choice to redirect packages to Access Points. USPS also offers “Informed Delivery” and options to hold for pickup — all tools that may keep holiday gifts from getting intercepted before they reach the tree.
The Boston City Council unanimously backed a resolution that calls for the Wu administration to release updated cost estimates for the city’s taxpayer-funded half of a public-private plan to rehab White Stadium for a professional soccer team.
The Council voted, 12-0, Wednesday for a resolution put forward by Councilor Julia Mejia “in support of demanding updated cost estimates for the White Stadium project” — a figure the mayor during her reelection campaign committed to disclosing by the end of the year but has not yet provided.
“This resolution is to ensure that the City Council and the people of Boston know the exact financial commitment the city is being asked to take on,” Mejia said. “The last public estimate was over $100 million, and we have every reason to suspect that the number has changed as construction costs continue to rise.
“Yet no updated cost breakdown has been presented to this body or the public. We cannot govern responsibly without real numbers. We cannot ask residents to trust a project with a price tag that is still unclear, and we cannot move forward with a proposal of this scale without a full transparent process that lets us know what the city is on the hook for.”
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Mejia held a press conference with opponents of the White Stadium project and Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy, who co-sponsored the resolution, ahead of the day’s Council meeting.
Flynn said the resolution’s request was for the city to provide “basic and transparent information on how much the White Stadium plan is going to cost the residents.”
“I think residents do want to know how much it will cost and what impact that will have on taxes in the city,” Flynn told the Herald. “I support the development of White Stadium, but I don’t want to see it privatized.”
Melissa Hamel, a Jamaica Plain resident who attended the press conference and is part of a group of Franklin Park neighbors who have joined with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy in suing the city to stop the plan, said she was happy that the Council passed the resolution, but was “skeptical” that the city administration would follow suit and release updated cost projections.
“For me, as a taxpayer who’s lived in Boston for over 40 years and paid their taxes happily, I’m outraged that they want to continue to pursue this,” Hamel told the Herald. “For me to spend $100 million-plus … for a project that would primarily benefit a private enterprise, it’s just insanity to me.”
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Hamel said the situation was particularly fraught given that the resolution was taken up by the Council on the same day it voted to set tax rates that will bring a projected 13% tax increase for the average single-family homeowner next year.
“For them to take money that is designated for the Boston Public School children and the facilities to spend it on a project that really primarily benefits wealthy investors who don’t even live in our community is insulting to me, and then to find out that I’m going to have to pay more taxes, 13%, to fund these projects is just outrageous,” Hamel said.
“The city is already too expensive for most people to live in,” she added.
Mayor Michelle Wu in July laid out a timeline for the city to release an estimate for what the roughly $200 million and counting public-private plan would cost taxpayers by the end of the year, but the final price tag has still not been disclosed.
Flynn said he anticipated that, based on the mayor’s stated timeline, the Council would have already had those figures by its last meeting of the year on Wednesday.
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Wu’s office on Tuesday did not specifically respond to Mejia’s comments in her resolution — where she wrote that the city’s “significant fiscal pressures” heighten “the need for accurate cost estimates before committing substantial public resources” — but did provide a partial cost update which appears to mirror estimates that have been provided since last year.
“As the mayor outlined earlier this year, the complete bid packages for White Stadium were published in October. Under the timeline laid out by Massachusetts public construction laws, the responses will be evaluated and awarded in early 2026,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
“As of Dec. 9, the city’s project expenditures include $12 million on demolition and construction, and an additional $76 million in subcontracts have been awarded,” Wu’s office said. “After more than 40 years of failed starts, White Stadium is being rebuilt as a state-of-the-art facility for BPS student-athletes and the community, open year-round. We are excited to be underway.”
The project has doubled in cost since it was announced by the city and its private partner, Boston Unity Soccer Partners, and the mayor said last summer that costs would likely increase again due to federal tariffs driving up expenses for steel and other construction materials.
The last estimated cost to taxpayers was $91 million, which was revealed late last year by the Wu administration and represented a significant jump from the city’s initial projection of $50 million for its half of the contentious project.
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Josh Kraft, who challenged Wu for mayor before dropping out of the race two days after his 49-point loss to her in the September preliminary election, revealed an internal city document last June that showed the cost to taxpayers was projected to climb as high as $172 million.
Wu acknowledged the potential cost cited in the internal City Hall document, but described it as a “worst-case scenario.”
The mayor has declined to provide an updated cost estimate in recent months for the city’s plan to rehab White Stadium into the home of a new professional women’s soccer team, Boston Legacy FC, which will share the facility with Boston Public Schools student-athletes and the public as part of a city lease agreement.
Councilors who support the mayor’s White Stadium plan said that while they continue to take issue with “misinformation” that the project is opposed by most of the community, they opted to support the resolution because they found the request for updated cost estimates to be “reasonable.”
BOSTON (WHDH) – Around 400 children from every neighborhood in Boston got in the holiday spirit Tuesday night while they shopped with Boston police officers at a Target in Dorchester as part of the 17th annual Shop with a Cop event.
“It is far better than the North Pole and a little warmer, too,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox joked.
The joy is all made possible by the Boston police department, the Boston Police Foundation, and its sponsorship partners.
“This is what they truly do,” said Dan Linskey, Vice Chair of the Boston Police Foundation. “Cops care, and our Boston cops care about our community, care about the kids, and leading the way to make sure kids have a great holiday season.”
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The event started more than a decade ago with about 100 children, and soon grew to what it is today.
Officers involved said they know the true meaning of Christmas is sharing joy with the community.
“The first time kids are seeing a police officer, if it’s a positive experience with the magic of Christmas, that’s a lot better than a negative interaction with a police officer any time,” said Linskey.
Other law enforcement agencies also got in on the fun, with members of the MBTA transit police to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department also shopping until they dropped.
“I’m thankful for all our officers who care so much not only about the residents but the kids. This is a kids event. That warms my heart,” said Cox.
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