New Orleans Sanitation Workers Are On Strike for a Raise, Hazard Pay, and PPE
Sanitation workers for Metro Services Group in New Orleans are currently in week sixteen of a strike. They say their working conditions are abysmal, deeply unsafe in the middle of a pandemic — and that they’re paid only $10.25 an hour.
Sanitation workers on strike in New Orleans, Louisiana. (@StepUpLA / Twitter)
On May 5, 2020, a group of sanitation workers in New Orleans went on strike demanding an increase in wages from $10.25 to $15 an hour, and $150 a week in hazard pay and proper distribution of protective equipment during the pandemic.
The City Waste Union strike, as it’s called (even though the workers are not members of a union), is entering into its sixteenth week. The National Labor Relations Board started an investigation into the workers’ employer, Metro Services Group, in late June, but so far Metro has refused to come to the table. (In an illustration of the complicated arrangements produced by privatization, Metro has a direct contract with the City of New Orleans, and then subcontracts out to another company that handles payroll and timekeeping called People Ready.)
Though only fourteen workers (known as “hoppers”) are on strike, their struggle has drawn widespread support in New Orleans and solidarity action as far away as Seattle. They made this video about their working conditions and rationale for striking:
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