As of Nov. 1, motorists in New York are required to move over to give sanitation and recycling workers enough room to safely do their jobs.
Sanitation and recycling vehicles are now covered under the state’s “Move Over” law along with emergency and construction vehicles. Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the legislation to cover sanitation vehicles.
CSEA and our allies, including other waste industry organizations, lobbied strongly in favor of this legislation. Three of our members are among the many workers who have lost their lives while performing sanitation work in recent years.
Under the law, motorists must move over and slow down when passing sanitation and recycling vehicles, just as drivers have previously been required to do for emergency and construction vehicles.
“This legislation will help minimize potential hazards that sanitation workers face on the job every day, but there is so much more to do,” CSEA President Danny Donohue said. “We will continue our efforts to ensure that everyone who provides this important community service is as safe as possible.”
Passing this law is only one part of CSEA’s Slow Down to Get Around campaign, which aims to boost public awareness of potential hazards that sanitation workers face on the job and increase the state Public Employee Safety and Health (PESH) Bureau’s enforcement of sanitation standards.
Sanitation duties are among the most dangerous work that public employees perform. A 2014 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the latest year statistics were available, noted that sanitation workers have a fatality rate of 33 per 100,000 workers, the fifth most dangerous occupation ranked.
