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In the latest salvo in a political battle over Los Angeles' lucrative commercial trash collection business, City Hall's top budget guru Friday urged lawmakers to reject a controversial, labor-backed plan to award exclusive hauling privileges in a series of new franchise territories.
For months, union-affiliated groups have argued that the current system of private trash haulers vying to collect waste from apartments, factories, hospitals and strip malls should give way to a franchise system that would divide the 468-square-mile city into 11 zones. The change would improve service and recycling, reduce the number of rubbish trucks crisscrossing the city, ensure predictable rates and support well-paying jobs, proponents claim.
Business leaders, apartment owners and smaller trash haulers warn that the initiative is a thinly disguised union organizing effort and only large companies with labor agreements would be able...