{"id":16283,"date":"2020-05-30T11:36:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T15:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/2020\/05\/30\/new-orleans-sanitation-workers-strike-for-safe-work-conditions-and-hazard-pay\/"},"modified":"2020-05-30T11:36:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T15:36:00","slug":"new-orleans-sanitation-workers-strike-for-safe-work-conditions-and-hazard-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2020\/05\/30\/new-orleans-sanitation-workers-strike-for-safe-work-conditions-and-hazard-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans sanitation workers strike for safe work conditions and hazard pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"N.By MIKE HOWELLS<\/strong><\/p>\n

New Orleans sanitation workers, who went on strike beginning on May 5, were all fired by the city and replaced by prison labor, in an act that perpetuates the old \u201cConvict Leasing\u201d system of the Jim Crow South. Prisoners are paid merely $1.33 an hour\u201413% of the sanitation workers\u2019 $10.25 wage.<\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier story, by Mike Howells of the General Assembly of New Orleans and the Revolutionary Socialist Network, appears below.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAll our lives are in danger. If we get sick our families get sick. And if our families get pretty soon everyone gets sick.\u201d \u2014 Dartajean Daniels, City Waste Union of New Orleans.<\/p>\n

On Monday, May 18, striking New Orleans sanitation workers and\u00a0 their community supporters, about 100 in total, gathered on the steps of New Orleans City Hall to rally in support of the demands being put forward by the City Waste Union. The sanitation workers initiated the strike against Metro Service Group, their de facto employer, at a time when the first local wave of the COVID-19 was at its height.<\/p>\n

All the striking sanitation workers are hoppers. Hoppers do the back-breaking work of picking up curbside trash and disposing it into their assigned waste disposal truck. The hoppers\u00a0are demanding that Metro provide every sanitation worker with\u00a0PPE worthy of the name, $150 weekly hazard pay, a raise in hourly pay\u00a0from $10.25\u00a0 to $15, and formal recognition of the City Waste Union.<\/p>\n

For the hoppers the COVID-19 epidemic has brought to a head the longstanding problem of unsafe working conditions. Addressing the rally, hopper D. Daniels noted, \u201cI have worked for Metro for four years and they have never given me PPE.\u201d Another striking hopper, Lemont, observed, \u201cWe are not getting PPE or safe working conditions. Lemont added, \u201cWe have to deal with hydraulic leaks. They are dangerous.\u201d Jerik Simon, another striking hopper and a father of seven children, stressed that waste disposal work brings hoppers into contact with hazardous materials on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

That New Orleans sanitation workers toil for $10.25 an hour without personal protective equipment or benefits speaks volumes about where Metro and City Hall really stand concerning the well being of New Orleans sanitation workers and their families. For public consumption the Metro Service Group claims it provides PPE for all workers who need it. The testimony of the striking sanitation workers exposes this self-serving Metro Group propaganda for what is, a lie!\u00a0That the Mayor’s Office has done virtually nothing to correct this life-threatening situation at a time\u00a0when it requires all who enter City Hall to be masked belies the Cantrell administration\u2019s\u00a0callous indifference to the lives of sanitation workers and their families.<\/p>\n

The indifference of City Hall to the physical welfare of New Orleans sanitation workers is not simply a matter of grotesque class bias and the malignant influence of campaign contributions.\u00a0The city of New Orleans contracts out curbside trash pickup service to the Metro\u00a0and Richard’s Disposal.\u00a0City Hall’s $10.7 million contract with the Metro\u00a0make the city the, by far, largest customer of the waste management corporation.\u00a0This reality translates into the city\u00a0being the customer that benefits more than any other customer from Metro’s cheap labor-no benefits regime.\u00a0 Mayor Cantrell and city council, always eager to balance the city budget on the backs of workers, know this.<\/p>\n

As the rally progressed it was announced that Jason Williams, a member of New Orleans city council, was attempting to arrange a sit-down meeting so a dialogue between between the hoppers and Metro could be begin. The proposed meeting ended up being scheduled for May 23.\u00a0The hoppers showed up but Metro did not.<\/p>\n

Winning the demands of the hoppers strike necessitates that the City Waste Union and their supporters turn up the heat on the bosses of City Hall, Mayor Cantrell and the New Orleans city council.\u00a0Convincing City Hall to cutoff payments to Metro till the waste management meets the demands of the City Waste Union would result in an enormous shift in the balance of power in favor of the hoppers. To accomplish this, the hoppers and their supporters must put the political feet of the mayor and the members of city council to the fire of determined mass resistance from below. This can be done.\u00a0But to do this, hoppers must shed any illusions about City Hall or the Orleans Parish Democratic Party Machine being in their corner.<\/p>\n

Photo: GoFundMe \/ Democracy Now!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MIKE HOWELLS New Orleans sanitation workers, who went on strike beginning on May 5, were all fired by the city and replaced by prison labor, in an act that perpetuates the old \u201cConvict Leasing\u201d system of the Jim Crow South. Prisoners are paid merely $1.33 an hour\u201413% of the sanitation workers\u2019 $10.25 wage. An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882114,"featured_media":15144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30821,30835,30840,30850],"tags":[28154,31182,29759],"class_list":["post-16283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-liberation-racism","category-health-care","category-labor-2","category-police-and-prisons","tag-new-orleans","tag-sanitation-workers","tag-strikes"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/workersvoiceus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/n.-orleans-gofundme-democ.-now.jpg?fit=960%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-4eD","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}