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Walking Buzzards Wages and working conditions for Memphis sanitation workers were atrocious. The average pay was $1.80 an hour.
The wages were so low that forty percent of the workers qualified for welfare and many worked second jobs. They lifted leaky garbage tubs into decrepit trucks and were treated unfairly. During foul weather, black workers were sent home without pay while the white workers were paid a full day. There were neither benefits, vacation, nor pension. The sanitation department refused to modernize ancient equipment used by the black workers. Black sanitation workers were called "walking buzzards." The Strike Begins On a rainy February afternoon, two black sanitation workers sat inside the back of a garbage truck to stay dry. Old and poorly maintained, an electrical short in its wiring caused the compressor to start running, and Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death. The Memphis Sanitation Department gave the families of each worker a months pay plus $500 for funeral expenses. No city official attended the funerals and no further compensation was extended.
On the evening of February 11, T.O. Jones, president of Local 1733 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), held a meeting with sanitation workers to discuss the recent deaths, partial pay on rainy days and safety conditions. They ultimately decided that enough was enough and voted to strike. Taylor Rogers, an organizer with Local 1733 said, “If you bend your back, people can ride it. But if you stand up straight, people can't ride your back. And that's what we did. We stood up straight.” |
They were tired, beaten men, making a struggle that before they died they would stand up and be men.
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