The National Commission of Inquiry into the Worker Health and Safety Crisis in the Solid Waste Industry launched an investigation into safety issues at Waste Management and found systemic problems within the company, characterizing WMI's safety program as using an "archaic, misguided approach."

The report found that 40 years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life in an effort to fight for civil and worker rights for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, the same issues that led to the strike remain prevalent in the industry even today. These workers still face very real threats to their health on a daily basis, including handling hazardous materials without proper safety equipment.

"When Memphis sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker died on February 1, 1968, it set in motion a series of events that saw an entire nation swept up in a battle for basic civil and worker rights," said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. "This report, In Harm's Way reveals that the safety issues that Dr. King died fighting for, and the 1968 strikers stood united against, still remain at Waste Management. It is our hope that through this report, we can bring about broad change in this industry and at this company so that working in sanitation is no longer one of the most dangerous jobs in this country."

Download the full report (pdf).

Members of the National Commission of Inquiry into the Worker Health and Safety Crisis in the Solid Waste Industry are Peter Orris, Professor and Associate Director of the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health of the University of Illinois School of Public Health; the Rev. Nelson N. Johnson, Co-President of National Interfaith Worker Justice; Jose Bravo, Executive Director of the Just Transition Alliance; and Lamont Byrd, Director of the Teamsters Union Safety and Health Department.