The Black Sanitation Workers Who Are Saying, ‘I Am a Man’ by Daytrian Wilken (2020) c/o New York Times
Anthony Perkins, one of the members of the new City Waste Union on strike. William Widmer for the New York Times.
Overview
A determined handful of men in New Orleans carry on the cause Dr. King died defending in Memphis. As written by Daytrian Wilken, spokesperson for the City Waste Union in New Orleans care of The New York Times.
Key Takeaways
On the privatization of government services decentralizing working class power:
They often carry signs that say, “I Am a Man,” as they protest. It’s the iconic sign Memphis sanitation workers first carried in 1968, in their bitter, 65-day strike, during which Dr. King was assassinated after coming to support them. I am only 25, but it’s obvious to me that my uncle and his co-workers are still waging the same civil rights battle 52 years later.
The 1,300 Black men who stood up against the mayor and the city of Memphis worked for the sanitation department and negotiated directly with city leaders. But in 2020, outsourcing of garbage pickup means a few private contracting companies manage many small groups of New Orleans sanitation workers.
But with the mix of private employers, one of which hired a public relations firm to help during the strike, it is nearly impossible for a large number of the workers doing the same jobs across the city to band together and negotiate their working conditions with any one company or with elected officials. That means Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the sanitation department are insulated, remaining one or two steps removed from dealing directly with the men on the front lines.
On the bureaucracy and lack of accountability in capitalism’s trickle-down economics:
In my uncle’s case, the city contracts with Metro Service Group, a Black-owned, New Orleans-based company, for part of its residential sanitation pickup. Then, Metro subcontracts with an employment company called PeopleReady, a division of TrueBlue, based in Washington State, that oversees and pays my uncle and his co-workers.
So when we spoke out about how the men’s pay was less than the $11.19 living wage that the city requires, the mayor pointed to Metro for answers. And Metro pointed to PeopleReady. After more than two months, no one from the mayor’s office has spoken directly with the men.
At one point, Metro subcontracted with another company to replace the strikers with prison inmates, who were paid even less than the men on strike got paid. But after that arrangement was made public, the subcontractor backed out.
On the paradox of well-intended actions within an ill-intended system:
As I understood it, one of the original goals of contracting out the work years ago was to give more opportunity and power to Black and brown private contractors in a majority-Black city. And a goal of the city’s living wage ordinance was to protect the people those companies hired. I don’t think anyone set out to take advantage of working-class Black men; I just think it has turned into that. “Instead of actually helping everybody,” said Kendrick Anderson, 27, a hopper, “they just went along with that system they already have going.”