As Baltimore City officials continue to try to improve workplace safety and morale at the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Solid Waste, sanitation workers said one change in particular would better their situation: a pay raise.

The City Council on Thursday held an investigative hearing into the ongoing efforts to improve conditions for sanitation workers after two employees died on the job last year. Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration and Khalil Zaied, the director of DPW, promised last summer to address the substandard treatment of trash collectors after one worker, Ronald Silver II, died of heat stroke while working his trash route in early August. A second worker, Timothy Cartwell, died on the job in November in an accident.

Labor leaders and workers, while occasionally at odds, have both pushed the city to address long-standing issues in the solid waste division. Officials have found that workers weren’t given adequate safety training, are subject to abusive management, are sometimes discouraged from reporting workplace injuries, work with outdated equipment, and sometimes weren’t given water or Gatorade on scorching hot days.

Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming has released a series of investigative reports that highlight how poorly sanitation workers have been treated. Last week her office released its latest installment, which found that, among other things, solid waste workers have been injured on the job more than 1,600 times in the last six years.

“Now is the time to create and sustain a safety culture throughout DPW that empowers all workers to identify and report risks before they lead to injury or death,” City Council President Zeke Cohen said.

DPW has begun implementing some changes to fix the problems that workers face — a policy for preventing heat-related illnesses and requiring training to recognize them is being developed and will be presented to the council in the coming weeks — but much progress remains to be made.

“We’re not where we need to be, but we’re going to get there,” said Zaied, who took the helm of the agency in October.

Labor leaders acknowledged the progress but pushed Scott’s office for more action.

“If they’re serious about doing this, they’d sit down with us in a marathon session and get it done,” said Patrick Moran, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for Maryland.

Negotiations between the union and the city are ongoing, said Marvin James, Scott’s chief of staff.

Workers who testified at the hearing said they do not feel respected compared to other city employees and that their pay does not reflect the value they bring to the city. The average solid waste worker makes about $43,000 a year. Trash truck drivers earn about $53,000 annually, according to the inspector general’s report.

“I can’t even buy eggs,” sanitation worker Clarence Thomas told the council.

Councilman Isaac ‘Yitzy’ Schleifer, chair of the Legislative Investigations Committee, said reliable trash pickup is the most important city function.

“If that function was not being provided, we wouldn’t have a city,” Schleifer said.

Schleifer and Cohen worked together to secure a pay raise for sanitation workers in 2020, but now recognize that they need to do more, Cohen said.

“This report makes crystal clear is that it is not enough,” the council president added.

The city has completed a pay study for DPW, and administration officials committed to briefing the council soon on what it lays out for sanitation workers.

James and Zaied both signaled a pay raise for solid waste division was coming, but could not say how much that would be because of ongoing negotiations between the city and the union.