Sharing harrowing stories of injury, violent threats, and illness, Baltimore City sanitation workers demanded higher pay during a heated city council oversight hearing on Thursday night.

Two sanitation workers died of injuries sustained on the job in 2024: Ronald Silver II and Timothy Cartwell. The council meeting came two weeks after yet another in a series of investigative reports from Inspector General Isabel Cumming into the conditions at the Baltimore City Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Solid Waste. Between 2019 and 2024, six workers died of injuries on the job and there were over 1,600 injuries including heat illness, lacerations, and contusions.

Solid waste laborers in the Baltimore City Department of Public Works get fifteen cents an hour for hazard pay.

Some workers who testified recalled almost dying of COVID-19 or being maimed by falls. Reginald Pease says he’s been threatened by drug dealers.

“This is not right, this is not fair. We gotta go through this and we aint’ getting no money, that’s not right!”

After working in the department for over a decade, Pease says he makes seventeen dollars an hour.

“All I’m asking — we askin’ — please help us,” he said, trying to hold back tears from the podium.

Sanitation work is considered the fourth deadliest job by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Salary increases are in negotiation ahead of the city budget, due later this spring, said DPW Director Khalil Zaeid.

How much of an increase, if any, and when that would be, can’t be guaranteed yet.

“We’re in active negotiations again. It is always preempted by what the schedule is on both sides,” said Marvin James, the chief of staff for Mayor Brandon Scott. “We have no desire to go beyond summertime.”

Council President Zeke Cohen promised that pay raises for the department would be a focus of the council during budget season.

Also among Cohen’s concerns was the completion of the department’s heat policy.

Silver died in August of heat stroke when he was collecting trash. An outside investigation conducted by law firm Conn, Maciel, and Carey found that when Silver died, Baltimore City had no heat safety policy. The Inspector General found that the department was not conducting regular or comprehensive heat training.

Zaied said the new heat policy will be completed within three to four weeks. That plan must comply with the new occupational heat standard passed by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health agency on September 30th, two months after Silver died.

That standard requires scheduled breaks and shade — things that could affect the trash schedule, said Zaeid.

“It will effect the productivity that they have, absolutely,” said the director.

For her part, Inspector General Cumming noted that conditions at some of the facilities have been improving, particularly when it comes to access to water, toilet paper and Gatorade.

But, she said, the inspections will continue.

“We keep coming back,” said Cumming. “We will be coming back this summer, as well.”