The heads of two city agencies have acknowledged that a statistic they used to try to flip the narrative of the latest inspector general report about working conditions faced by sanitation workers was off by a wide margin.

Originally, Human Resources Director Quinton Herbert and Public Works Director Khalil Zaied reported that “approximately 56% of the DPW employees” who attended a city-run digital training class were from the Bureau of Solid Waste.

The percentage, which translated to 39 people, helped bolster their argument that the 136 sanitation workers whom IG Isabel Mercedes Cumming found were without city-provided health insurance had no one to blame but themselves. (Or in the words of their memo: “This data highlights potential lapses in individual employee accountability.”)

But when Cumming asked for the names of the attendees, Herbert and Zaied conceded that only one solid waste employee was so trained.

“A misinterpretation of a spreadsheet” was the cause of the misinformation, they said in an updated memo released today by Cumming.

The update provided this further explanation:

A “review of the data revealed that while 70 employees in the DPW completed the Digital Skills training program, only 1 of the employees was assigned to the BSW [Bureau of Solid Waste].”

Cumming said the error points to the digital divide within the city’s own workforce, where critical information, such as the details on health care insurance, does not flow downhill from supervisors to employees, especially to sanitation workers.

“It gets down to a matter of equity,” she said. “The people who are doing some of the most dangerous work in the city are not getting the tools to succeed and to stay healthy.”

“In response to my report,” she continued, “they used that 56% figure to say, ‘Look at how many solid waste workers have attended our digital skills class.’ Now we find out it’s what I have been trying to tell the city: ‘Less than 1% of the sanitation workforce is getting critical information.”’

Two IG reports over the summer documented hazardous and sometimes inhumane working conditions at DPW yards, including broken air conditioners and lockers, the absence of cold bottled water for crews going out on routes on Red Alert Extreme Heat days and toilet paper locked away at one worksite and only provided at a supervisor’s discretion.

The August 2 death of Ronald Silver II, who collapsed on the job in over 100° heat, led to widespread criticism of DPW’s “toxic culture” and the hiring by Mayor Brandon Scott of a pro-employer law firm to look at the agency’s safety protocols.

Promised by the end of September, the findings by Washington-based Conn Maciel Carey haven’t been released.

Barriers to Learning

In her latest report, Cumming noted that the digital classes that Herbert and Zaied touted as “ensuring [sanitation workers] have foundational computer skills and digital basics needed to navigate their professional and personal lives” were in a downtown office building miles from the sanitation yards.

The full-day course also conflicted with the schedules of sanitation crews, who typically work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to Cumming, and do not get permission leave to attend a computer class, like other city employees, even if they knew it existed.

“It’s trash first at DPW. That’s the management mindset. I interviewed a hundred workers, and everyone said they knew nothing about the digital computer program,” Cumming said.

In their updated response, Herbert and Zaied pledged to work together to develop a schedule of digital training for sanitation workers, with sessions to be held on the the first and third Mondays (the sanitation worker’s day off) starting in November.

“All employees will be compensated with overtime for their attendance and completion of the training,” they wrote. “Next week DPW will collaborate with its marketing team to discuss logistics and determine the most effective way to communicate these trainings with our staff.”

Cumming not only found that 136 sanitation workers, or nearly one-fifth of the force, did not have city-provided health insurance, but they also did not receive a $2,500 waiver credit provided under DPW’s  contract with AFSCME Maryland Council 3.

Patrick Moran, president of the union, told The Brew that the union was “shocked” that so many of its members were without health insurance.

“As the employer, Baltimore City is responsible for offering and enrolling our members into their employment benefits,” he said.