Let's see if I can get through the thick heads: the debate is NOT about pay for Sanitation employees

There are a lot of people in this town, including a number I respect and admire, who simply do not understand the debate involving the wages paid to the folks who collect residential garbage in Dallas. Are these folks grossly underpaid? Perhaps. Are they paid by the City of Dallas? No. Can the city do anything about raising their pay? (See answer to the "grossly underpaid" question.)

I'm writing this because of this story that appeared today in Unfair Park that incorrectly stated that two speakers who came before the Dallas City Council were "pleading for higher pay for sanitation workers." They weren't. Sam Merten, however, isn't the only writer/commentator who's getting this wrong, by any stretch of the imagination. He's simply the latest in the long line.

Let me see if I can make this clear. Sanitation workers, those City of Dallas employees involved in garbage, bulky trash, recycling pickup are, for the most part, truck drivers. They are paid roughly $18 an hour. The folks who (by somtimes riding along on the trucks, but more often by walking or running alongside the vehicles) actually pick up the trash and throw it into the truck are not City of Dallas employees. They work for a company that was the successful bidder (i.e., the "lowest responsible" bidder) for a contract to provide these workers. These folks are paid minimum wage, which, incidentally, will increase 12% percent next month -- a bigger raise than any City of Dallas employee will receive. But that's not the point. The point is that they don't receive a paycheck from the City of Dallas and grandstanders like Mitchell Rasansky (Merten calls his comments "hard hitting" but in reality he was being nothing more than a buffoon, as usual) can pledge $4 to $5 million all they want to, but none of this will automatically go into the pockets of these workers. Once more, Rasansky knows this. His ploy was nothing more than deal-making between him and council member Dwyane Carraway and I'm surprised that someone as observant as Merten didn't see through Rasansky's political charade.

And those speakers who came before the city council were not "pleading for higher pay for sanitation workers," but pleading for higher pay for the contract laborers who work for this outside company. One of the speakers, in fact, was one of those contract laborers.

Now, here's something the city can do. The Council can dictate that the next time the City sets out this contract for bid, it must contain a provision that these workers must be paid no less than (whatever amount the council desires). Actually, the city proposed this very notion last November. In a briefing to the council, the Sanitation Services Department recommended the contract call for these employees to be paid an amount equal to the lowest amount the city pays all its other part-time employees. The Council, however, took no action on the idea at that time.

But the council can still do this and, frankly, I have no problem if it does. And Rasansky can keep his $4 to $5 million because the money to pay for this higher contract will come from the same place Sanitation Services gets all its operating expenses: from the sanitation fees Dallas Water Utilities customers see billed to them on their monthly water bill. I have it from a very reliable source that the cost to raise these contract workers' pay to this level will be 19 cents a month. That's a measly $2.28 per household per year. Of course, that will be on top of the 50 cent increase already being proposed for the next fiscal year which begins in October. Plus, the way the council is talking now, they will probably want to raise these workers pay even higher than the minimum wage the city pays its other part-time workers, so, to be on the safe side, let's say the pay increase will cost each household 25 cents a month. That means household Sanitation Fees will increase about 75 cents a month or $9 a year. Actually that's not a bad deal.