TOLEDO, Ohio — Four days after their scheduled pickup, residents of Burnham Avenue finally saw a Republic Services truck, but the crew wasn’t from Toledo.

“They’re working their butts off. My neighbors gave them waters. They’re killing themselves, really,” said Michael Conner, who has lived on the street for 15 years.

The workers, brought in from Texas and Minnesota, are filling in as local garbage collectors refuse to cross a picket line in support of a strike at the company’s Ottawa, Illinois, plant. But residents say the replacements don’t always know the routes, leaving portions of streets untouched and trash rotting in bins.

“They’re after better wages, health coverage and pension, and the company refuses to bring them equal to the other two facilities in the same area,” a union

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