Sanitation workers on front lines of coronavirus pandemic demand better protections
Sanitation workers — alongside doctors, nurses, truck drivers and postal workers — are among the nation’s “essential” personnel who will continue to show up for work amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But many feel as though their safety has been disregarded.
“That’s all they care about is picking up the garbage. They don’t even care about our health,” Pittsburgh sanitation worker Fitzroy Moss said in a Facebook livestream when he and others walked out of work this week.
A miscommunication about start times led Pittsburgh sanitation workers to rally for a few hours on Wednesday outside the Bureau of Environmental Services, the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette reported.
They pushed for better protective gear — including masks — as well as hazard pay, an additional set of work boots, and new gloves that don’t let liquid in.
According to the Gazette, the incident occurred on the heels of another sanitation worker being sent home after his wife was potentially exposed to the coronavirus.
The City of Pittsburgh responded in a statement, saying officials were “taking all due precautions to protect refuse workers,” including regularly cleaning their trucks, providing them with protective glasses and gloves, and performing daily health screenings.
Roughly 500 miles south, a sanitation worker for the City of Raleigh died from complications of COVID-19, The Raleigh News & Observer reported.
Adrian Grubbs, 37, worked for the Raleigh Solid Waste Services Department for 17 years, the City of Raleigh said.
According to the N&O, his coworkers held a virtual meeting with City Council members Thursday night to express concerns about their risk of exposure. They also submitted a list of demands.
“I think they could be doing more to protect us, because it’s not just the workers. It’s our families,” Charlen Parker, president of the Raleigh City Workers Union, told the N&O.
City officials later said in an email to the N&O that they’ve reduced the number of workers in a truck, are checking their temperatures when they arrive for work, and cleaning the trucks daily.
In Charleston, officials are instituting safety precautions for its workers, WCSC reported.
City Superintendent of Public Service Matt Alltop said in addition to providing standard protective gear like goggles and gloves, every truck now has hand sanitizer, according to WCSC.
The city also divided sanitation workers into two teams — one to work one week and the second to work the next. Alltop told WCSC each employee started having their temperature taken upon arrival this week.
“They’re out there, they risk exposure to make sure that the city’s clean, so just think of them while they’re out there working,” he said, according to the media outlet.
Amid the safety concerns, some sanitation workers said theystill take “an extra sense of pride” in their work.
“Us garbagemen are gonna keep collecting the garbage, doctors and nurses are gonna keep doctoring and nurse-ering,” a sanitation worker named Aaron Meier tweeted. “It’s gonna be ok, we’re gonna make it be ok.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Sanitation workers on front lines of coronavirus pandemic demand better protections."
