Honolulu residents who usually get their trash picked up on Mondays will not have rubbish collection for the next two post-holiday Mondays because the union workers' holiday observances fall on those days, city officials said yesterday.

City Environmental Services Director Eric Takamura said the United Public Workers union, which represents the refuse collection crews, informed the city on Thursday that "they are invoking the holiday clause of the collective bargaining agreement for their members who work for the city refuse division and would not report for work the Monday after Christmas and the New Year."

Takamura said normally Christmas and New Year's Day are the only days of the year when city refuse pickup doesn't happen. Even though both holidays fall on Sundays this year, Takamura said the union had previously indicated that workers would report both of those Mondays.

But the union leadership said this is nothing new. Whenever the holiday falls on a Sunday, the workers have received Monday as the holiday, said UPW state director Dayton Nakanelua.

Takamura said that means that about one-third of O'ahu residents — about 60,000 households — who get regular rubbish collection will have only one weekly trash pickup instead of two.

Nakanelua said the two days are the only holidays observed as days off by the refuse division, where crews work six days of each week, Monday through Saturday. "On every other holiday, we perform our work as we normally do," Nakanelua said.

Nakanelua said union officials found out through a radio news report that the city had announced regular refuse pick-up on the two Mondays. And that's when they notified the city that "we are recognizing that benefit in the contract and enjoying the holidays."

Regular rubbish pickup will resume on Tuesday, Takamura said.

Nakanelua said the next time that the holidays will be observed this way will be in 2011.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.