City Council members will hold a hearing next week on the working conditions in Baltimore’s Department of Public Works after a sanitation worker died from overheating on the job this month.
The hearing, scheduled for 5 p.m. Aug. 22 before the council’s Rules and Legislative Oversight Committee, will take place just under three weeks after 36-year-old Ronald Silver II collapsed on a resident’s porch while trying to get water on his trash pickup route. A series of hearings was first announced at a news conference last week responding to Silver’s death, called by councilmembers Zeke Cohen, Antonio Glover and Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer.
More than a dozen of Silver’s family members gathered outside City Hall this week and called on City Council to convene hearings immediately. Silver started his job with the Department of Public Works less than a year ago, according to his family’s attorney, making about $18 an hour and supporting a fiancée and five children.
Silver’s death came as the Department of Public Works was already facing scrutiny over poor and at times dangerous working conditions.
This summer, the Baltimore Office of the Inspector General released two reports on the working conditions at city-run sanitation facilities, including the Cherry Hill yard where Silver was based. The reports found broken air conditioning, inoperable water fountains and nonfunctional ice machines at one facility and damaged locker rooms and locked-up toilet paper at another. Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming personally observed employees leaving for their trash routes without being given water or Gatorade for their shifts, she wrote.
At last week’s press conference, City Council members and union leaders pointed to a “toxic” culture of bullying and intimidation within the public works department that they argued has exacerbated poor working conditions there.
Mayor Brandon Scott has said he is working with leadership in the Department of Public Works and labor unions to improve working conditions. The first-term Democrat has argued that poor conditions have stemmed from decades of disinvestment in Baltimore’s public works facilities and pointed to millions his administration has invested in facility improvements.
On Aug. 2, the day of Silver’s death, the heat index in Baltimore reached more than 105 degrees and the city’s health department declared a code red heat alert.
Twenty-seven year-old resident Gabrielle Avendano told WYPR that Silver knocked on her door shortly after 4 p.m. that day and immediately displayed erratic behavior before collapsing backward onto the pavement.
Avendano gave Silver water, poured it over him to try to cool him and began chest compressions until emergency response arrived. While much of this was playing out, Avendano and a neighbor told WYPR, Silver’s co-worker remained in the truck. According to the witnesses, the co-worker said Silver had been complaining about leg and chest pain for much of the day, but it was Avendano who first called 911.
The circumstances of Silver’s death are under investigation by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health agency.
In addition to hearings, union leaders and City Council members have demanded a full-time position in the inspector general’s office investigating workplace safety in the Department of Public Works, along with increased staffing for the agency.
Silver’s death was a wake-up call, Cohen said. “No one should have to wonder if it’s the last time they’ll say goodbye to their family when they leave for work.”
