Somber and silent, the family members of city sanitation worker Ronald Silver II stood again before Baltimore City Hall to demand answers about his death last summer after collecting garbage in smothering August heat.

They’ve done this before, but there was new information this time.

“Over the weekend the family learned from Baltimore Brew reporting that MOSH had issued a citation for ‘serious’ workplace violations,” said the family’s attorney, Thiru Vignarajah, speaking for them today.

“The audacity of a report that says this man died on a day where the heat index was 108.6 degrees – two weeks after this agency was warned that people didn’t have water or Gatorade or training. And then they get a $0 fine?” he continued, referring to the single citation issued to Baltimore late Friday by Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH).

Vignarajah drew heavily on what he called a “damning” 48-page report about operational issues and workplace culture at the Department of Public Works (DPW), released last week by Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Cumming.

“They have these absurd routes – longer overwhelmingly than routes anywhere else in the nation,” Vignarajah said in a reference to one of Cumming’s numerous findings:

• The OIG found DPW’s trash routes are 20% larger on average than the industry standard of 950 stops per route.

• Workers also told the OIG they are under pressure to work through injuries and are threatened with suspension if their report of an injury was not made on the same day it occurred.

“They encouraged people to not complain. To work when they were hurt, to ignore their own symptoms and to pick up the trash as quickly as they could,” Vignarajah said. “This is modern-day indentured servitude.”

At another point, he put it this way: “They treat them like servants and slaves.”

What Happened That Day?

Last week, DPW released a statement declaring that “clear progress is underway” as the agency targets “systemic challenges” and old infrastructure in order to improve workplace safety.

A “heat illness prevention plan” is being finalized and other improvements were said to be made or in progress.

Vignarajah pooh-poohed these assertions.

“They’ve put lipstick on a pig,” he said, borrowing a phrase from a worker quoted in Cumming’s report. “They have repainted the walls and replaced some faucets in the bathrooms. They’ve got toilet paper and Gatorade.”

He said Silver’s family has never been given answers to their questions about what happened to cause their loved one to die on August 2, 2024, and that two sources of information could provide answers.

Vignarajah asked MOSH to release all the investigative material gathered over a months-long investigation ahead of its two-page citation charging the city with a violation.

He has also asked Mayor Brandon Scott to release the full investigative findings of the D.C. law firm the city hired after Silver’s death to review the incident and DPW’s heat protection practices,

The firm, Conn Maciel Cary LLP, released a public document that concluded Silver’s death was “preventable” and recommended numerous new policies and procedures.

But it didn’t shed much light on the 36-year-old father of five’s final hours and who was directly responsible for what happened.

Although attorney-client privilege protects the report’s detailed findings, Vignarajah said that Scott, as the client, could make it available to the public.

“This family has one clear request,” Vignarajah said. “Which is not, ‘what are you going to do going forward?’ We know the Department of Public Works has [described plans to improve its practices]. What this family needs to understand is, ‘why didn’t it happen before he died? Why did a man have to die for the obvious to take place?’”