Good afternoon, Chair Nurse and thank you for holding this hearing today. My name is Lacey Tauber and I am the Legislative Director for Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. BP Reynoso has long been a champion for health and safety of workers in the private sanitation industry, and so I am here today to again call for swift implementation of Commercial Waste Zoning (CWZ) in NYC.
When BP Reynoso was Chair of the Council’s Sanitation Committee from 2014-2021, we routinely heard news reports and testimonies from workers in the industry that documented the many issues they faced, including:
- Long hours and pressure to complete routes quickly, leading to unsafe driving practices from speeding, to running red lights and driving the wrong way, to falling asleep at the wheel;
- “Helpers” routinely hanging off the back of moving trucks;
- Employers hiring off the books, paying less than minimum wage and/or engaging in wage theft, and requiring workers to provide their own personal protective equipment; and
- Use of trucks that that failed to comply with safety regulations, routinely failed safety inspections, or hadn’t been inspected in years.
ProPublica reported in 2018 that private sanitation trucks killed seven people in NYC in the previous year.
In response, the Council and partners carefully designed the CWZ legislation to address these issues. The law requires, among other things:
- City oversight of routes and schedules, and compliance with federal regulations regarding hiring, wages, the number of hours a driver can be on the job;
- Whistleblower protections for employees;
- Tailored worker safety trainings covering driving, collection best practices, and operation of equipment;
- Compliance with safe driving regulations including but not limited to stopping at red lights, not driving the wrong way, and not riding out the outside of vehicles;
- Six-month vehicle inspections to ensure compliance with safety and environmental regulations;
- Use of cross-over mirrors, back-up cameras, exterior lighting, and a digital system to monitor speed and flag unsafe driving behavior; and
- A safety task force tasked with monitoring industry safety conditions and making recommendations to improve them.
DSNY’s CWZ request for proposals also required consideration of the applicant’s history of compliance and submission of a health and safety plan demonstrating their roadmap for exceeding existing safety and technology requirements. While DSNY has begun to contact carters about their awarded zones, the full scope of these is not yet clear to the public, so it is hard to say now whether the awards made will reward companies who are known to be good actors within the industry. This is something we will be watching closely as we learn more information.
Unfortunately, due to delays in CWZ implementation, the problems outlined above still remain unaddressed. A scan of headlines reveals at least three New Yorkers killed by private sanitation trucks in the last year-and-a-half. Additionally, the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) reported a sharp increase in worker fatalities last year in the US and Canada, retaining the industry’s standing on Forbes’ list of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in America in 2023.
BP Reynoso has already been in front of the Council and spoken to Commissioner Tisch directly to express his disappointment with the delays that have already occurred. So, in conclusion, I will simply say again that we hope to see a swift rollout of the program citywide after DSNY announces the first zone awardee next year. The longer we wait, the longer workers experience unsafe conditions, and the longer we put off making our streets safer for all New Yorkers.
