Pockets of DPW have been toxic for decades, say City Council members and union leaders
Demanding safety measures in the wake of a Baltimore sanitation worker’s death, they stopped short of calling for resignations and warned against “finger-pointing”
Above: Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Local 3, and City Councilman Zeke Cohen listen to City Councilman Antonio Glover speak outside DPW headquarters in downtown Baltimore. (Fern Shen)
Bowing their heads, elected officials and union leaders assembled downtown today to remember the Baltimore city sanitation worker who died of heat-related illness while working on Friday and issued an urgent call for safety measures.
Declaring the death of Ronald Silver II a largely preventable tragedy, they vowed to investigate and called for a number of measures, including a full-time position in Baltimore’s Inspector General’s office to focus on safety at the Department of Public Works (DPW).
“While we honor him, we must also be honest – he should still be alive today. His death must be a wake up call,” said City Councilman Zeke Cohen, who is in line to become City Council President in December.
The root cause of the problem?
The speakers pointed to an entrenched management culture at DPW that they said is characterized by indifference, hazing and cruelty.
“The toxic culture at DPW must be gutted,” said Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Maryland Council 3, which represents Bureau of Solid Waste workers like Silver who go out on trucks to collect city trash and recycling.
“The hazing, intimidation and bullying must end,” Moran said, drawing nods of agreement from the rest.
“In one sanitation yard, toilet paper was used as a tool of coercion,” Cohen said, referring to Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cummings’ recent report that revealed how workers in the Bowley’s Quarters Solid Waste Yard, with no toilet paper in the stalls, were forced to request it.
“This is over 25 years of history that needs to be changed,” agreed City Councilman Antonio Glover, who drove garbage trucks as a DPW employee.
“I understand the negative culture of the Department of Public Works, where employees feel as if they’re not being respected,” he said. “You’ve got to remember that we’re taking on individuals that are coming home from prison. It’s the old adage, I went through it, so you’re going to go through it.”
“We can’t point fingers”
But asked how the situation was allowed to continue for so long – and whether anyone would now be held accountable – all of the speakers demurred.
“We can’t point fingers, we’re all in this together,” Glover said. “We can’t blame the mayor’s administration. We’ve got a new director we’re waiting to confirm.”
Cohen made the same point, cautioning that “we are not here today to cast blame on any individual” and also pointing to Acting Director of the Department of Public Works, Khalil Zaied.
“We can’t blame the mayor’s administration. We’ve got a new director we’re waiting to confirm” – Councilman Antonio Glover.
Zaied, a 20-year veteran of city government, was appointed by Mayor Brandon Scott to head DPW in March.
“We have a new DPW director,” Cohen said. “We are grateful to Khalil Zaied for choosing to lead this agency, and we hope to partner with him to make it better.”
Khalil Zaied, then director of the city transportation department, with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2012. (Brew file photo)
Hastily Offered Training
The press conference, held on the northwest corner of War Memorial Plaza facing DPW’s Abel Wolman headquarters, is the latest twist in a story that broke last month with IG Cumming’s scathing reports on hazardous conditions at DPW workplaces.
Cumming has said the conditions – ranging from lack of access to cold water to trucks with no air conditioning – likely run afoul of federal OSHA rules and violate the city’s contract with AFSCME Local 44, which represents the employees.
Her office has formally requested records of heat-related training provided by DPW to its employees.
PREVIOUS BREW COVERAGE:
• Many city workers endure inhumane conditions similar to those uncovered by OIG, union leader says (7/25/24)
• In surprise visit, Baltimore inspector general finds sanitation workers exposed to extreme heat, no A/C (7/10/24)
• After Inspector General report slams conditions for sanitation workers, DPW responds (7/19/24)
• DPW knew about poor working conditions at solid waste facility for months, IG says (7/23/24)
• Scott reaches back, grasping an old hand to lead DPW (3/12/24)
• Baltimore City government workers are subjected to “egregiously” unsafe conditions, union says (5/1/23)
Meanwhile, a hastily-called heat-related training was being provided for sanitation workers today in the wake of Silver’s death. DPW suspended citywide trash and recycling collection in order to provide the sessions.
The agency has released few details about the 36-year-old Silver other than to confirm his death after “a medical situation” and to say “our hearts are first and foremost with him, his family and loved ones, and his DPW colleagues as we grapple with this loss.”
Speaking on WYPR’s Midday, Mayor Scott pointed, as he has previously, to “decades of disinvestment” in city government buildings, and said DPW was addressing the issue “systematically” with a schedule of facility upgrades.
He noted that the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) and Baltimore Police Department are conducting investigations of the circumstances around Silver’s death.
A Baltimore sanitation worker empties a trash can into a Bureau of Solid Waste truck. (“DPW Proud” video)
Meanwhile, the councilmen and union leaders said they are looking for answers, including, as Cohen said, “an explanation of why DPW facilities were not being properly maintained.”
Among their other demands are:
• Hearings to identify necessary changes to safety and health conditions across the Department of Public Works.
• An independent review of the city’s facility maintenance contracts.
• Increased staffing levels for DPW sanitation workers.
• A commitment from the Scott administration to work with the council and municipal unions to improve worker health and safety protocols, including conducting joint walk-throughs of every municipal worksite over the coming year.
Moran said his union has asked the mayor’s office for data on other incidents involving employees that required medical attention or hospitalization.
“We know over the last week, in addition to brother Silver’s death, there was a number of incidences on that same day,” he said. “We made a request for a time period of about the last year or two, and we’re still waiting that data.”
On the Defensive
Moran described conditions he saw on a visit to DPW’s Cherry Hill yard on Friday as “deplorable, absolutely deplorable.”
“The showers don’t work – they were a storage room, basically. The bathrooms were horrendous. The same out at the Curtis Bay landfill – absolutely no ice machine,” he said.
“These are things that can be addressed right now, and they need to get on it.”
But Moran was also challenged by reporters who relayed complaints from the rank-and-file that his union has been ineffective.
“We can bring this up to management again and again. If they’re not going to take action, then we have to keep on pushing, which is what we’ve done,” he responded.
“If they’re not going to take action, then we have to keep on pushing, which is what we’ve done” – Patrick Moran, President of AFSCME, Local 3.
Cohen spoke in defense of the unions as well as himself and fellow council members.
“This is not a new problem. We’ve been in ongoing conversations. We pushed during budget hearings. We’ve heard time and time again that there are significant safety concerns,” he said.
“So I would just push back and say that I do think our unions are working hard to take care of the folks that they represent.
Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer, a longtime critic of DPW, said that he and Cohen “over the past two terms have successfully lobbied for increased wages, bonuses and additional union positions within DPW.”
“My message to those workers is that their city government is here for them,” Schleifer continued.
“We will keep fighting for them until they are compensated appropriately, have functional facilities and safe working conditions so they can return home to their families in the conclusion of every single day.”
City Councilman Antonio Glover speaks as city council members Zeke Cohen, Kris Burnett and Yitzy Schleifer and Comptroller Bill Henry listen. (Fern Shen)
Also speaking at the news conference was Roderick Pinkett, vice president of the City Union of Baltimore, which represents DPW supervisors – including the supervisor at the solid waste yard who withheld the toilet paper from workers.
Asked if there would be any training for them in light of the IG’s revelations, he said that “those conversations are going to start.”
“They’re uneducated as well,” Pinkett told The Brew, noting that “one of the people who told Mr. Silver on Friday to keep on working was one of the supervisors we represent.”
“I do know that it was a supervisor that he asked for help and said he was having chest pains, and leg pains, but for some reason, that supervisor didn’t really act on that,” Pinkett said. “The details are kind of murky at this point.”
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