KEY TAKEAWAYS: New Orleans Workers‘ Center for Racial Justice launched a campaign to provide food, water and protective gear to cleanup crews. Many workers are hired through Job1 or Ramelli Janitorial Services on short-term contracts. The mayor’s office, led by Helena Moreno, says supplies and safety equipment are provided when requested. Advocates say long shifts, limited PPE and unclear oversight highlight ongoing labor and safety concerns.   Every year, hundreds of cleanup workers take to the streets following the largest Mardi Gras parades, cleaning up thousands of pounds of throws, wrappers, food, drinks and other trash. Residents and visitors who’ve attended parades the night before are often awestruck at how clean the parade routes are the next day. But after speaking with several workers on-the-ground during last year’s parade season, the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice — a labor rights and economic empowerment organization — heard that the workers who get the routes in pristine condition do not receive adequate personal protection equipment and food and water to get them through cleanup shifts that last several hours. In order to draw attention to and improve conditions for the workers, the organization launched a campaign this year called “We Are Not Disposable” to recruit volunteers to hand out food, water and personal protection equipment to the clean-up crews. Volunteers with New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice will be offering supplies to cleanup workers at two stations along the route during parades such as Muses and Iris — at Harmony Circle and outside of Fresh Market at the intersection of Louisiana and St. Charles avenues — in addition to at the start of the route where clean-up workers meet. Some workers are employed by the Department of Sanitation, but most are hired on a short-term contract basis through the city’s workforce platform Job1 and through Ramelli Janitorial Services. Workers use a combination of rakes, shovels, roll carts and debris blowers. In a written statement emailed to Verite News, Isis Casanova, communications director for Mayor Helena Moreno and the city of New Orleans, said workers are provided with safety glasses, face masks and rain ponchos as requested, in addition to food and water. “Clean-up workers are provided with water and snack pack (chips, cookies, fruit snacks, granola bar, Blow Pop) daily,” the statement read. “On parade days where clean-up workers report in the morning, a sandwich is provided.” A Ramelli representative refuted claims that workers don’t receive adequate gear, telling Verite News the company provides gloves, reflective gear and goggles as needed and that workers are “well-taken care of,” often only working about 4 to 5 hours after the parade ends. Volunteers have been conducting street interviews with workers throughout Carnival season and will continue to do so to understand how workers are being treated. The organization said the items that are being provided are based on information gathered from more than 40 interviews since early 2025. New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice organizers said sandwiches often aren’t provided, water is limited, workers are not made aware that they can ask for extra personal protection equipment and the gear offered is inadequate for the type of work they are doing. The Mayor’s Office and the Department of Sanitation did not respond to questions from Verite News about the alleged lack of food, first aid and high-quality supplies necessary to protect the health and safety of cleanup workers. Safety concerns Cleanup workers are assigned to a parade route on a first-come, first-serve basis. Shifts can be between 10 to 20 hours long, according to a statement from the Mayor’s Office, with many workers arriving back at home past midnight, sometimes only to wake up early for another shift the next day. Jordan Bridges, organizing director of New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, started contacting workers to learn about their working conditions in 2025 because of his interest in labor rights within Black and brown communities. He also participated in clean-up efforts in 2025 and 2026 because, in his eyes, “you can’t organize for people [who] you have no idea what they’re going through.” Bridges said for weeks after his cleanup shifts in 2025, he dealt with severe nasal congestion that turned into a sinus infection. His eyes were red for days, and dirt and other particulate matter he had breathed in during the cleanup kept coming out of his nose. This year, Bridges said he wore a mask during the cleanup efforts after the Oshun and Cleopatra parades Feb. 6 but has still been dealing with congestion for days. Magali Ortiz, a community organizer at New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, ran public training sessions in January and February to invite volunteers to learn more about what carnival season cleanup workers face and how to engage them in conversation. She said although the city claims to offer many kinds of protective equipment, workers are rarely made aware of the option to request more personal protection equipment, most of which is too low quality for the task at hand. “People are mostly raking, but from time to time they have to actually put their hands in a lot of this trash … [The gloves] are not waterproof, they’re not resistant to things like glass or other trash that might be in there,” Ortiz said. “Imagine you’re next to somebody with a massive leaf blower,” she added. “There’s all this particulate matter that’s just getting thrown around and getting in your eyes.” The cleanup shift often begins hours after workers receive their food and drink. Bridges received only a snack pack, a vest, gloves and a bottle of water for a 10-hour shift on Feb. 6. He said he did not pre-pack extra food in order to get the full experience of relying solely on the city’s provisions. The Mayor’s Office said that “clean-up workers take periodic breaks along the route as the water truck refills and in between clean-up segments” but did not respond to questions from Verite News about how often breaks are allowed. “It’s not a break,” Bridges said. “Anybody that’s ever been on-call knows that if I’m on-call I’m basically working. … We have to move away from devaluing people’s time.” He added that many of the “breaks” involve workers standing around waiting for work to be done. There are also very limited opportunities to find and use a bathroom. Bridges said while he loved being a part of the camaraderie that builds over working alongside the same people for several hours, the cleanup is especially exhausting for those who sign-up for double shifts — 10-hour shifts two days in a row. “Workers I’ve seen sleep in cars, I’ve seen just wander for a few hours. I’ve seen people sleep on the sidewalk next to Fresh Market, exhausted from either the previous shifts they’ve done or just trying to catch a nap,” he said. Bridges said cleanup routes are randomly assigned. If assigned to Route B or C, workers can watch the parade and begin cleaning up once it passes. If assigned to Route A, workers must follow the parade, right behind the debris blowers, and do not get to participate in the festivities of the day. The Mayor’s Office said between 200 to 500 clean-up workers are deployed each parade day. Bridges added that Job1 recruiters make the cleanup seem like easy work and easy money because of how much standing around there is, instead of disclosing how the work can be physically taxing. Job1 did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. “Even if you’re standing for 10 hours, it takes a reasonable amount of vitality and dexterity to do that,” he said. “Even if you have a rake, you still have to have a moderate amount of fitness to walk that distance and work that distance.” Although workers provide an emergency contact prior to the cleanup, Bridges said there is no first aid available on site in case of an injury. He added that the Red Cross tent packs up and leaves once parades end because their focus is to care for parade-goers. The Red Cross did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. Lack of city support New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice’s new campaign should not be interpreted as “antagonistic” by city leadership and Job1, according to Ortiz. However, she added that talks with Job1 regarding the cleanup workers’ rights have been disappointing at times. “I think nobody in the city seems to be wanting to take responsibility for how to determine what protective equipment is actually needed, based on the conditions on the ground,” she said. “If the Department of Sanitation is saying that they’re not the ones in charge, and Job1 is saying that they’re not the ones in charge, then you know they’re constantly passing the buck.” Ortiz added that the city and Job1 seemed more concerned about the cost of providing personal protection equipment than the health concerns of failing to do so. “They were like, ‘Well, you should really just get equipment that’s as disposable as possible, because the workers are going to lose them, or it’s not really worth it to really invest in that kind of stuff, because some of the workers don’t bring it back.” The Department of Sanitation and Job1 did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. Reforming clean-up efforts City-funded cleanups began Feb. 6, following the Krewe of Cleopatra. New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice organizers said that larger krewes are provided with cleanup services for free, while smaller ones have to pay for their own cleanup efforts. Parades on the West Bank, such as NOMTOC on Saturday, do not get a city-funded cleanup. Bridges said he’s seen trash blow into people’s yards for days after a parade. “I think it just brings in a bit of a question of who deserves to have their neighborhood cleaned up, and why are we doing that cleanup?” Ortiz said. “And when is that being done for tourists, as opposed to the people who are actually living in the neighborhoods that are being impacted?” Bridges also pointed out the city’s racial disparities that are on display during the clean-up efforts. He said he has seen wealthy college students laughing and recording cleanup workers, many of whom are Black and are tasked with cleaning up high-income Uptown neighborhoods. “I’ve watched people bring trash out of their houses and throw it right on the ground when they see us coming,” he said. “People throw pizza — take a bite of it, don’t want it no more, and just throw it into the trash pile.” With greater effort and cooperation on the city’s part, Bridges said he believes better pay and working conditions for cleanup workers is possible. “At the end of the day, are the workers that are doing the Mardi Gras clean-up and staying up and sacrificing their bodies and time and lungs and health and don’t get to enjoy Carnival — are they being taken care of?” he asked. “The answer is, we can do a lot better.” This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ...read more read less