Thrown Away

May 7, 2018 8:47 AM

“Every night in New York, an army of private garbage trucks from more than 250 sanitation companies sets out across the five boroughs picking up the trash from all manner of businesses. Racing to complete long and often circuitous routes, the trucks crisscross the city at breakneck speeds. The human toll is substantial: Since 2010, there have been 33 deaths attributed to private garbage trucks across the city. Sanitation Salvage trucks, now involved in two deaths in six months, have failed federal safety inspections at a rate that’s four times the national average. “ To the press he was a “daredevil homeless man” who “came out of nowhere” but an investigation revealed he was Mouctar Diallo, an off the books private sanitation worker whose death was covered up. TREATED LIKE TRASH (ProPublica)
posted by The Whelk (13 comments total)

One of many public services that should be municipally owned and run but isn't because mumble mumble free market efficiency. And also a good reminder that "efficiency" in a capitalist context usually means "exploitation".
posted by tobascodagama at 9:00 AM on May 7, 2018 [26 favorites]

I may have had to negotiate a few truck loads of unpermitted demolition and construction waste removal in Manhattan a few years back, these guys are no fucking joke.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:02 AM on May 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

sanitation has always been a huge racket in this city, and presumably everywhere else, and combined with the extremely shrug emoji treatment of vehicular manslaughter it is a recipe for gross disaster.

The New York Police Department said lying to the police was not a crime.

i would like to know how anyone affiliated with the nypd said this with a straight face
posted by poffin boffin at 9:10 AM on May 7, 2018 [33 favorites]

In 2015, after an investigation, the Department of Labor concluded that Sanitation Salvage owed workers $385,000 in unpaid overtime over the past three years. Sanitation Salvage refused to pay, claiming the workers were seeking to be paid for time actually spent hanging out with friends. When the department chose not to take the company to court, the issue ended.

The department chose not to take the company to court over egregious violations. Why? This, too, needs to be looked into.
posted by corb at 9:27 AM on May 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

The 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike in Memphis began after two sanitation workers named Robert Walker and Echol Cole were crushed to death in a poorly maintained garbage truck. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support the strikers when he was assassinated.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:29 AM on May 7, 2018 [18 favorites]

Important and horrible detail: it wasn't just two deaths in six months caused by Sanitation Salvage drivers. It was two deaths in six months by A SINGLE Sanitation Salvage driver, who was not fired or reprimanded after the first death (described in the OP) and who then went on to kill again.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:39 AM on May 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

tobascodagama: There is a very large, municipal, tax-funded sanitation department in NYC (I should know, my partner works for it), but they're not responsible for commercial trash collection. Rolling commercial collection into DSNY's duties seems like the correct solution to this, but boy howdy, that's an uphill battle.
posted by SansPoint at 9:40 AM on May 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

And also any discussion of sanitation workers in New York needs to include the attacks supposedly progressive city mayors and officials have made to break the power of the sanitation workers. Why has it gotten so bad? Because city officials were willing to destroy workers in order to break the Mafia. From another and more in depth ProPublica story on this issue:

In Caban’s view, the old days were the golden era of garbage. If a man worked himself to the bone, he could earn enough to buy a house and a car and send a kid to college. Working the night shift at a garbage company in New York basically had all the perks of working the day shift at the Sanitation Department. Almost every garbage company in the city was in the same union, Teamsters Local 813, and every three years, the union would rent out the ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel so garbage men could ratify the contract, which achieved routine raises, triple-time pay for snow duty, as well as paid holidays, vacations and a pension.

That changed after the sweeping prosecutions of the 1990s. The gates were opened for a flood of non-union companies, and citywide collective bargaining became a thing of the past. “They got the mob out. But the workers got screwed royally,” said Teamsters organizer Allan Henry.

posted by corb at 9:47 AM on May 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

Is there anything that deregulation and privatization can't make worse?
posted by sotonohito at 11:08 AM on May 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

There is a very large, municipal, tax-funded sanitation department in NYC (I should know, my partner works for it), but they're not responsible for commercial trash collection.

Indeed, and the difference between public and private sanitation service is stark:

Drivers for commercial trash carting companies have killed at least 43 people on NYC streets since 2010, according to city data. Sanitation department drivers, on the other hand, have not been involved in a fatal crash since 2014.

posted by enn at 11:34 AM on May 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

enn: Which is yet another reason why private sanitation/commercial collection should be brought under the purview of DSNY. The protections for civil sanitation workers would greatly reduce the number of fatalities. (Though civil sanitation workers do die in the line of duty, it's much rarer than for private workers.)
posted by SansPoint at 12:26 PM on May 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

The Business Integrity Commission, the New York City agency charged with oversight of the commercial garbage industry, allowed both the driver and main helper to keep working.

What a sad tale. Makes you wonder what the Business Integrity Commission is really all about and whether the name is some kind of cruel joke.
posted by ecourbanist at 12:30 PM on May 7, 2018

sanitation has always been a huge racket in this city, and presumably everywhere else

Maybe somewhere in some ex-Russian republic, or parts of Mexico... but I don't know anywhere else that could claim to compete with the level of corruption as NYC's sanitation business.
posted by rokusan at 11:30 PM on May 7, 2018 [1 favorite]