“We live among the pigs,” said Raymond Jackson, a tractor operator at the Riverton City Waste Disposal facility in Kingston. His retort adequately described the squalid working conditions of the men and women whose job it is to sort, stack and bury the refuse of residents of Clarendon, St Catherine, Kingston & St Andrew and St Thomas each day.

The Riverton City dump is no picnic ground. Pigs wallowing in mud, cows foraging the heaps of garbage for food peels, and millions of pesky flies and mosquitoes competing with the humans for any available surface.

The workers describe the infrastructural inadequacies: a run-down reconverted cargo container used as the administrative office, office furnishings and appliances salvaged from the dump, a restroom not connected to the sewerage system, a portable toilet that is not emptied often enough, and two 4,000-gallon tanks which provide the only source of potable water.

Since they were installed in about 2003, the tanks have not been cleaned, the workers said. Two portable toilets were brought to the site when then prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, visited. However, a week after the visit, one was taken away. Prior to that, the workers, who would have been repeatedly shortchanged, relieved themselves in the thick bushes on the property or behind one of the dozens of garbage heaps on the landfill.

“Wi bathroom big,” joked one of the men as he pointed to the bushes.

Low wages and the absence of basic benefits such as health or accident insurance and pension payments, despite the fact that several of them have been with the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) for more than 20 years, are other burning issues among the workers.

Earlier this month, junior minister in charge of local government reform, Robert Montague, at a meeting with representatives of the waste management agency, ordered that the Riverton workers be put on staff, which will entitle them to pension and health insurance benefits. During that meeting, Montague also ordered that the restroom be rehabilitated and that the new administrative building – which is just four walls at this point – be completed and furnished.

When the Sunday Observer visited the site during the afternoon rains last Thursday, the workers had just completed signing up the subscription forms for the Blue Cross insurance policy. So at least one thing seems to be happening. However, until all the instructions are carried out, they will have to endure the sub-human conditions on the dump.

Sadly, it seems they are immune to some of the unhealthy conditions, for while swarms of flies and mosquitoes had us dancing the entire time Thursday, the workers did not appear bothered. And for all they endure, they barely earn more than the minimum wage.

On Friday, the Pay and Conditions of Employment Department of the labour ministry said it could not comment on the situation at Riverton because it only monitors private sector companies.

Landfill workers at Riverton take home between $8,000 and $20,000 twice per month – minus overtime earnings – depending on the type of work they do and their seniority. At the top of the food chain is the landfill manager, followed by supervisors, tractor operators, truck directors and finally, attendants, whether of the tyre or metal cells. At the level of tractor operators, the wage is $800 per eight-hour shift.

Lansdale McKay has been working at Riverton for 25 years now, but he’s still classified as temporary. He’s a tractor operator and, like his colleagues, his wages vary depending on the length of the month, and the number of overtime hours he puts in. For five-week months, he receives $9,600 twice for the month, while for shorter months, he receives $8,000. The total for the month can either be $19,200 or $16,000.

McKay bought a house through the Inner-city Housing Project and pays $7,300 each month for mortgage, almost half of his earnings for the month. He has light and water bills, which he estimated at $4,000. Then there is $21,000 in tuition and fees for one of his nine children who attends a prominent high school. In addition, he has to find money for her books, lunch money and bus fare.

Another daughter, he said, is pursuing a degree in Business Management at the University of the West Indies. His paycheque has already been shot to pieces. So how then, does he and his family survive?

“Most a how mi send dem go school ah gamble mi gamble. Race horse ah my second trade,” he explained.

Marlon Gardener, a 32-year-old tyre cell attendant, told his story, “Right now, mi a collect $11,000 little bit per fortnight,” he said. The figure, he added, is an increase over his previous $7,200 fortnightly wage.

Gardener lives with his wife, who works as a nurse and has four children, two of which are Gardener’s. Fortunately for them, the father of the other two children lives abroad and supports them.

The mortgage for his Caribbean Terrace, Spanish Town Road home is a little over $7,000 and the cost of schooling has not yet started to be difficult because the children attend primary schools.

To augment his meagre pay though, Gardener said he trades in the informal scrap metal industry.

Raymond Jackson told the Sunday Observer that he earns between $15,000 and $18,000 per fortnight. With overtime claims it can go up to $25,000. However, his bills, which are broken down below, far exceed his earnings.

Light $2000 +

Water $300 +

Child maintenance $10,000

Bank loans $unspecified

Lunch $3,000

Mortgage $7,000 +

“More time yuh haffi sey this fortnight yuh nah pay light, next fortnight, yuh pay the mortgage, yuh see mi? Yuh haffi pick which one and just juggle dem,” he said, explaining how he manages his finances.

Similar experiences were shared by temporary supervisor Michael Bryan and landfill supervisor Matthew Ranglin.

According to Bryan, he earns $24,000 per fortnight now that he’s (temporarily) in a supervisory position. His bills are broken down thus:

Mortgage $7,000 +

Light $3,000

Courts(furniture) $10,000

School fee $19,000

“Ah ’bout three months now mi water cut off because mi cyaan manage it,” he said. “Sometime it all come to $15,000, $20,000.”

Ranglin chimed in: “We don’t know how we survive.” He said that he, too, has to hustle to supplement his pay on which his girlfriend and their two children depend.

“For one, we want better payment,” said Ranglin. “Right now, I get $800 per shift.but I think something between $1,500 and $2,000 per shift is very much reasonable for the type of work that me do.”

He also bemoaned what he said was a disregard by the NSWMA office staff for the landfill workers.

“Dem deal wid wi like sey wi doan even recognise. We’ve been through so many managers but nutten nuh change fi wi,” he complained. “Workers down here don’t get the opportunities and chances we should get. After working so long and we nuh have no health insurance, if something happen to yuh and yuh go to the office dem tell yuh sey dem cyaan compensate yuh.

Yuh been getting cheques from 1993 and still they tell yuh they don’t have records for you? We don’t have no benefits, we have nutten fi get,” he said, encouraging his colleagues to air their own dissatisfactions.

“Wi know dem can do better, ’cause right now, wi ah gi dem 150 per cent [but] dem ah gi wi basket fi carry water,” Jackson chipped in.

“If mi could ah get a work out a road (that) pay better, mi woulda gone, but when yuh go outta road and ask yuh have some people ah guh round yuh… Ah nowadays yuh can tell somebody sey yuh come from Riverton and dem nuh turn dem nose or tink real bad. Even up ah di office, wah day (mid-September) when di minister come deh ah di first dat dem allow Riverton workers fi stay in di same room wid di office people dem meanwhile a meeting a gwaan,” he fumed.

At the end of the day, however, the men said they like what they do. They just need to be better equipped to do it.

“We love di work. Wi know sey wi good at it. There’s no fire down here weh we cyaan out,” said Gardener.

And for McKay, the avenues which his meagre wages will open up for his children through education are a source of motivation.

“Mi come see my mother and father ah suffer, nuh have no education. Dem come have we (and) we start to suffer. So me sidung and ask myself how mi ah go break di cycle. But mi start get children inna my young days, which neva good fi me, so me end up haffi ah work.

“So mi sey mi ah go break di cycle by sending dem to school, mek dem go to university and have a good education. Mi nuh fail in doing so yet,” he said proudly.