Picking up Baltimore’s kitchen scraps, dirty diapers and old milk containers, they’re sometimes stuck by needles, menaced by dogs, thrown off their trucks or sprayed with the smelly liquid that squirts out of trash bags.

Baltimore’s sanitation workers – employed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) Bureau of Solid Waste (BSW) – feel their low-paid but essential labor is taken for granted until workers die on the job, as two did in 2024.

That’s what many of them told Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Cumming, whose latest report is the subject of a City Council hearing – today at 4:30 – that will be live-streamed by Charm TV. Along with Cumming herself, DPW officials will be on hand to respond.

To learn what the Office of the Inspector General found after combing through hundreds of pages of documents and interviewing more than 130 employees, read the full report or The Brew’s story today.

Or check out some of the highlights that caught our attention, just a fraction of what’s in the report:

BSW WORKFORCE

• 748 total full-time employees.

• 400 laborers and solid waste workers and 205 drivers.

• 355 assigned to Bowley’s Lane yard (eastside) and Cherry Hill yard (westside).

LONG ROUTES UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED

• A 2022 report by Rubicon, the city’s sanitation route vendor, found the number of routes Baltimore solid waste workers completed on average was very high. For example:

• 1,166 trash stops per route – 20% larger on average than the industry standard of 950 stops per route.

• 2,608 recycling stops per route – 101% larger than the industry standard of 1,300 stops per route.

• “The city’s service expectations are practically impossible to achieve,” Rubicon wrote in 2022.

• Some routes take five hours, while others require nine hours.

• Since the Rubicon report, DPW has implemented changes to the recycling routes for equalization, but not the trash routes.

TASK WORK SYSTEM

• Work four days a week, with 10-hour shifts, Tuesday to Friday.

• One route per shift.

• Shift is complete when route is completed, whether it takes four hours or 10 hours.

BOWLEY’S LANE: “SMELLED LIKE A SEWER”

• A landfill until it was closed in 1984, the office “smelled like a sewer and fecal matter” for years.

• “The smell of gas” was so bad “doors would need to be opened after the weekend to air out the smell.”

• OIG noted these problems and others in 2019 and the city promised repairs. But in July 2024, the same problems remained.

• “A DPW manager explained that they received advice from a plumber: to pour water down an unused sink and locker room drains when a gas odor is detected.”

• DPW received a $24,468 penalty from the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) last November.

• The agency was cited for “repeat issues of oil and trash in truck parking areas, oil-laden stormwater freely flowing into parking lot storm drains, scattered trash, missing stormwater visual reports, routine and annual site inspections, and employee training documents.”

CHERRY HILL: “HORRIFIC HEAT AND COLD”

• Used as a waste incinerator or landfill until 1977.

• Added to the Maryland Superfund list in 1985, but in 1999 MDE found “no further investigation required.”

• Workers describe the facility as “horrible” and “horrific” in part because of an HVAC system that does not function.

• The locker room is extremely hot in the summer and cold in the winter. DPW often doers not provide heaters in the winter.

• A makeshift trailer, added in 2011, was supposed to be temporary until renovations were undertaken. The renovations never happened.

BACK TO TWICE-A-WEEK TRASH PICKUP?

• West and East Baltimore routes get done sooner compared to routes in Federal Hill, Locust Point and North Baltimore, where residents put out more recycling.

• Unequal routes impact overtime for solid waste workers and drivers. After a crew’s task work is completed, they may then work on another route.

• Many employees would like to see a return to twice-a-week trash pickup.

• DPW executives have no plans to return to twice-weekly trash pickups, saying the goal is to increase residential recycling.

NOT ENOUGH WORKBOOTS, PROPER CLOTHING

• Numerous workers stated they have experienced delays in receiving uniforms, gloves or boots.

• When temperatures were in the 20s and low 30s one day last December, many workers at Bowley’s Lane and Cherry Hill were seen without uniforms.

• DPW recently purchased 676 heated jackets for $82,134, but the jacket have an un-insulated hood. The battery lasts no more than two hours and is not waterproof.

• Many workers say they need new boots two or three times a year, not just once a year.

• Employees may walk 30,000 steps a day on their routes. A worker who lost the sole of their shoe was told by a supervisor to just “duct tape it back together.”

TRUCKS WITH SAFETY, EFFICIENCY ISSUES

• The lifters or tippers on the back often don’t work, meaning workers must lift the cans themselves.

• Numerous witnesses said trucks had malfunctioning air conditioning or none at all.

• A shortage of trucks sometimes means a long wait in the yard until a truck becomes available.

• As of November 2024, there were 133 trucks with an average model year of 2020, an improvement over previous years when the fleet was older.

•  In the newer air-conditioned trucks, the area behind the seats – where workers had often placed a cooler – is too small to do that.

• New trucks could have been available in mid July 2023 if the city had postponed “wrapping” them with a new logo. But then-Bureau Head Craig Jeter did not want to skip that process. He felt “it was important for branding DPW’s new image.”

ILLNESS AND INJURIES

• From 2019 to 2024, six Bureau of Solid Waste employees died and 1,627 workers made comp injury claims, averaging roughly one claim per workday.

• Of the 293 injured in 2024, 154 injuries were employees from Bowley’s Lane and Cherry Hill.

• Of the 154 documented injuries: 41 sprains, strains or tears, 19 lacerations, 18 contusions and 17 inflammations and 12 heat-related illnesses. All but one came from Bowley’s Lane and Cherry Hill workers.

• As for the cause of injuries: 31 came from motor vehicle accidents, 29 from overexertion, 13 from contact with foreign material or sharp objects, and 13 from slips or falls.

Six people died and 1,627 workers made comp injury claims picking up your trash between 2019 and 2024.

• Employees described being pushed to work through heat-related illnesses.

• If an injury was not reported the same day, employees were told they would face disciplinary action, including suspension. In other words, twist an ankle, but fail to report it that day because was not immediately sore or swollen, and you could face discipline.

• Federal OSHA guidelines state that “employers must not use disciplinary action or the threat of disciplinary action to retaliate against an employee for reporting injury or illness.”

• An employee injured by a trash truck is expected by co-workers to finish the route before seeking medical attention. The injury is then reported, but instead of taking the employee directly to the health clinic, “supervisors took the employee back to the accident scene and demanded the employee show them how the injury occurred.”

• A DPW human resources manager said “they have been begging for a standard operating procedure on reporting injuries for years.”

• Employee visits to the Mercy Medical Center are widely described as quick and perfunctory, with  doctors often making an evaluation without a physical exam.

NO PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

• Numerous employees reported that they do not receive performance evaluations.

• OIG requested performance documents for 26 employees, supervisors and two superintendents. None had evaluations on file.

• Supervisors at Bowley’s Lane and Cherry Hill are represented by the City Union of Baltimore (CUB).

• Their contract agreement states that any year when a CUB employee does not receive an evaluation, their performance will be considered “satisfactory.”

• Write-ups and discipline are either retaliatory or are done inconsistently due to favoritism. Employees say they were “verbally chastised” for reporting unsafe driving or requesting to be with another driver.

• Many employees describe their supervisors as untrained in how to respond to injuries, heat concerns, and other health and safety issues.

• Witnesses described alcohol and drug use within the facilities among both workers and supervisors.

• Many workers are hired on a “second-chance” basis and are particularly vulnerable because they cannot afford to lose their jobs, which could be seen as a violation of their probation. “Many endure mistreatment to stay employed,” the IG reported.

DISENGAGED, DISMISSIVE

• A union representative noted that AFSCME Local 44 does not get involved in complaints about supervisors unless there is a contract violation.

• Asked their perspective, supervisors identified “the need for more training, more employees, more vehicles, a designated counselor for DPW, and higher salaries for workers and drivers.”

• Amid a health crisis, DPW could only collect 103 employee phone numbers from its supervisors – less than half of the workforce at Bowley’s Lane and Cherry Hill. “The lack of phone numbers for employees indicates a communication gap between supervisors and employees.”

• After a DPW fatality, the IG spoke with the DPW human resources manager about an employee who worked with the deceased employee. “This manager was dismissive concerning the employee’s traumatic experience.”

INADEQUATE TRAINING

• New workers and drivers get no training other than a two-day new employee orientation, which covers completing paperwork, receiving Workday passwords and other technical information.

• DPW “just throws you on the back of a truck,” several workers said.

• Drivers attend a class at the city’s Biddle Street Garage, but they do not receive any hands-on training about how to drive through the city’s tight streets and alleys. Workers receive no spotter training.

• The driver involved in the November 2024 DPW fatality was on the job for less than seven months.

UNION “ABSENT UNTIL A WORKER DIES”

• Solid waste workers and drivers said “they do not feel supported by Local 44.”

• A superintendent attempted to have a AFSCME Local 44 representative visit the yard to meet with employees, but the rep declined and suggested that employees simply attend union meetings.

• Asked how Local 44 informs members of its monthly meetings, the union declined to specify the method.

• The union’s MOU states that promotions are to be based on seniority, which does not allow the best qualified candidate to be hired, leading to a lack of upward mobility for high-performing employees.

• After many employees questioned how their union dues are utilized, OIG sent a subpoena to Local 44. The union’s legal counsel responded but, ultimately, did not provide the requested records.

• “The union representative also refused to speak about the election process and, shortly thereafter, its counsel informed the Inspector General they would not discuss it with the OIG.”

• During its investigation, employees alleged misconduct occurring within Local 44. The OIG “has forwarded these concerns to the appropriate entities with jurisdiction for further investigation.”

HEAT: PUSHED TO IGNORE IT

• Numerous employees said they’ve either experienced or witnessed heat-related illnesses on the job, including passing out, feeling light-headed and cramping.

• Supervisors would tell workers who suffered from heat issues that they “were being soft.”

• Supervisors and drivers would push for employees to finish the rounds. “It’s like the trash is more important than us,” said one.

• In June 2022, less than half the employees received heat-related training. In the following year, no heat training sessions were conducted.

• Online heat training for supervisors in 2024 was attended by only six of the 21 solid waste yard supervisors.

• A heat training session held four days after Ronald Silver II’s death was “the first time in history that employees from the two yards had ever attended a meeting together.”

•  Many said the training did not speak directly to their experiences while working in the heat.

• What Former Bureau Head Craig Jeter said to the IG when told about hot conditions – 80ºF and up – in the trailers at Cherry Hill: “When employees who are disgruntled [are] in a union shop environment, this is what you get.”

• Jeter added, “They can be replaced.”

ILLNESS STATS JUKED BY DPW?

• OIG requested records of heat-related illness (between 2021 and July 2024) and noticed that DPW removed 10 of them from the same list provided by risk management.

• DPW explained they did not count these as heat-related because they were “determined to be caused by syncope.”

• OIG noted that “syncope” is another word for fainting or passing out and that there are several types, including heat-related.

• Most of the deleted cases occurred on days when temperatures reached 90-103°F, with employees reporting “light-headedness, dehydration, blacking out due to heat, dizziness and vomiting,” and other symptoms.

• Calling the data omission “concerning” and warning that “it could obstruct multiple investigations,” the IG turned the matter over to law enforcement.

ESSENTIAL WORK, LOW PAY

• Solid waste workers are responsible for trash and recycling pickup for more than 210,000 households and 290 multi-family dwellings, as well as businesses.

• Their injuries, accidents and hazards on the job include being stuck by needles, falling from or being struck by the truck, encountering dogs and rodents, and being sprayed with liquids from the truck.

• Employees reported having encountered drugs in trash cans and had guns pulled on them by residents.

• The city’s “hazard pay” for these employees amounts to 15¢ per hour, equating to $6 for a 40-hour week.