As Maryland labor officials begin to investigate a second Department of Public Works employee death in Baltimore this year, union officials are calling on city leaders to do more for employee safety.

Council 3 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees issued a statement Monday from its president, Patrick Moran, demanding health and safety information and to negotiate enhanced workforce training and safety measures following DPW Solid Waste worker Timothy Cartwell’s death last week.

The death came as DPW’s workplace safety and emergency response practices are scrutinized by city and state officials due to another solid waste worker’s death this August.

Cartwell, 60, died Friday after Baltimore Police say he was trapped between a garbage truck and a wooden light pole while picking up trash in a West Baltimore alley.

Baltimore Fire units responded about 10:23 a.m. Friday to the alley near the 1800 block of Baker Street in Sandtown-Winchester for a report of an unconscious subject, finding Cartwell “responsive but not coherent,” spokesperson John Marsh said. He fell into cardiac arrest while being transported to R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, where he died.

Cartwell, who city records indicate worked for DPW for roughly 17 years, was a member of AFSCME Local 44, according to the union. He was assigned to the Reedbird Sanitation Yard, the department said over the weekend, adding that Cartwell’s death was a “profound loss for our agency.”

“I’m shocked that happened to my nephew,” said Cartwell’s aunt, Vivian Cartwell. She declined to comment further, citing her grief. The department, which had senior staff provide support at the hospital and offered Cartwell’s family its condolences, said that counseling services and support are available to employees through the city’s Employee Assistance Program.

“This is another tragedy at DPW,” said Moran, whose union has pushed for safety measures related to heat-related illnesses in recent months following the on-the-job death of another DPW Solid Waste employee, and Local 44 member, Ronald Silver, this August.

Silver’s death came shortly after a report from the city’s inspector general found that DPW employees in Cherry Hill did not have adequate access to water, ice or fans during the summer.

Silver’s early August death, which officials attributed to hyperthermia, prompted an independent review of DPW’s protocols for extreme heat and responding to emergencies. That review found a “lack of sufficient communication, coordination, and collaboration among divisions responsible for ensuring the safety of, and/or monitoring and responding to emergencies” involving DPW’s frontline solid waste employees. The report noted “key individuals” responsible for safety, training and emergency response disagreed, or were unsure, of their responsibilities. It also said that several workers were unaware of the department’s emergency phone line.

“Far more needs to be done,” Moran said in his Monday statement.

The Baltimore Police Department’s Accident Investigation Unit is probing the crash. DPW is “fully cooperating with BPD’s investigation to ensure a complete and accurate understanding of what occurred,” spokesperson Jennifer Combs said Monday when asked about further investigations and additional safety measures.

Meanwhile, Maryland’s Occupational Safety and Health Act agency has opened its own investigation into the fatal Friday crash, according to labor department spokesperson Dinah Winnick. The state’s OSHA enforcement agency is also investigating Silver’s death, though that probe is still ongoing. MOSH investigations can take months to years to conclude.

The agency, which investigates all employee fatalities at covered workplaces, only probed a handful of city employee deaths in recent years, according to a federal OSHA database. It cited the city for a DPW employee’s death in 2020 after the 43-year-old solid waste worker fell off the back of a garbage truck in Central Southwest Baltimore and struck his head on a curb, killing him, according to the agency. That violation was under OSHA’s general duty clause, which requires companies to provide a workplace free of recognized hazards.

The city also was cited for a DPW supervisor’s 2019 death at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant. Investigators say that longtime employee Trina Cunningham fell through metal grates into a wastewater treatment vat, where she drowned. The city was cited for 13 violations related to equipment hazards, 11 of which were marked as “serious,” for the June 2, 2019 incident.

But the city has received fewer violations from MOSH inspections, which are either planned or prompted by a complaint or fatality, over the past few years.

More recently, MOSH has closed investigations regarding two rowhouse fires that killed Baltimore City firefighters — one last October that killed two, and another on Stricker Street in 2022 that killed three. Though those fatal fires have prompted lawsuits and for the city to adjust its firefighting policies, neither led to any violations.

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