During a hearing last month, Baltimore city councilmembers learned that there is no direct way for sanitation workers to contact supervisors on their route, potentially leading to delays in communications when issues or emergencies arise.
“There's not a two- way radio system currently being used… in this modern day and age, everybody uses a cell phone,” said DPW Acting Director Khalil Zaeid, during the August investigative hearing before the council.
While the industry has guidelines for things like how far and how fast a worker should ride on the back of a truck, it doesn’t have anything comparable for communications, even in emergencies.
“In terms of a federal regulation or a standard specifically in the waste industry for that communication, there is not a standard,” explained Kirk Sander, who oversees safety and standards efforts at the National Waste and Recycling Association, noting that various industry professionals told him they use different methods. Some relied on radio systems while others had tablets with internal communications.
In Baltimore, Ronald Silver II, who died of heat sickness while collecting garbage in early August, would have had to rely on his personal cell phone or coworker for communication or help during his emergency.
WYPR requested via the Maryland Public Information Act to inspect or obtain any correspondence between the vehicle occupied by Silver on the day he died and DPW supervisors/management, including “text messages/whatsapp/signal communications as well as recorded audio from the vehicles including radio, scanner, and VHF communications.”
Baltimore DPW responded by saying the agency “has no records that are responsive to your request.”
In that same hearing, Zaied said that the trucks “do have devices if there's an emergency… they can use that device to call 911.”
Zaied may have been referring to the Rubicon software system that is outfitted in the trucks; that program displays collection routes while also having the ability to monitor that truck drivers are operating the vehicle safely.
Baltimore City DPW did not provide answers on multiple requests for comment or clarification before this story published.
Sander, the safety expert, couldn’t say whether Baltimore’s methods were typical among sanitation departments but Silver’s death, he says, does highlight a need for an industry-wide examination.
“Should we set a standard for that communication so it doesn't matter if you're a private hauler or a municipal hauler… you’ll be able to communicate with the other garbage trucks?” Sander posited, noting that he plans to discuss communications standards further with his safety committee at NWRA.
Mobile phones, of course, present their own dangers. Under a 2015 rule from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, drivers of commercial vehicles are strictly forbidden from holding a phone, texting, or pressing more than one button (although the law does provide for hands-free options). Baltimore’s policy goes even further by forbidding the use of bluetooth by drivers operating city vehicles.
Sanitation crews operate with a driver and typically one to two laborers, leaving one person hands-free.
“The thing with mobile phones is that it’s, for lack of a better word, killing our workers, because people are being distracted with it,” said Sander.
Sander suggests that maybe it's time to consider making something like a citizens band radio, which can allow multiple bi-directional frequencies, a standard in waste vehicles.
“In some cases, some supervisors don't answer their phone if you call them,” said Stancil McNair, a laborer who had a stroke on the job working for DPW a few years ago, who wonders if he might have gotten more help in that situation if another method had been used, like a walkie-talkie– which used to be widespread in city sanitation trucks.
“That was the kind of a way to hold everybody accountable, because on the walkie talkies allow the people that had them to hear everything that was going on,” said McNair.
Baltimore DPW’s policies are currently under review by Conn Maciel Carey, a third-party law firm hired by the city. Councilmembers decried that choice in August, citing reports that the firm has a history of being anti-union and working against a federal occupational heat standard.