Black Workers Sue St. Louis City Over Wage Violations, Discrimination

Nine Black sanitation workers say that the City of St. Louis didn't pay them properly for overtime and that they were paid less than their white colleagues. 

A lawsuit filed in federal court earlier this week accuses the city's Refuse Division of violating state and federal wage laws by not properly compensating the employees at one and a half times their regular pay when they worked more than 40 hours in a given week. The suit alleges that the department, as well as the workers' manager "willfully, and with reckless disregard carried out" the pattern of illegal nonpayment. 

They are now seeking the pay they say was withheld, as well as other damages.

The suit alleges there was a racial component to their treatment, claiming that the nine men bringing the suit were paid less than white employees who did similar work. 

The men bringing the suit are all heavy equipment operators with St. Louis’ Refuse Division, but the suit does not specify if the heavy equipment they operate are trash trucks. Their attorney, Daniel Sparks, would not comment on the suit beyond saying that it speaks for itself. 

Last year, complaints about overflowing dumpsters in St. Louis reached a peak, and the city promised to work double shifts to clear the mess. There have also been complaints about sporadic recycling services, with some city residents even filming as recyclable blue bin material has been loaded into the back of garbage trucks along with trash from brown receptacles, all of it presumably headed for a landfill. 

This summer, responding to complaints about the trash, the city said they were short approximately 10 drivers and that while it took a fleet of about 45 trash trucks to service the city, only 37 were operational.