Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Man keeps streets clean, has more time for family

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Monday, July 26, 1999

Man keeps streets clean, has more time for family
Trash collector values shorter days, benefits
By James A. Suydam
Caller-Times

Rene Morales
Occupation: Refuse collector
Quote: 'It's . . . not something that everyone can do. But . . . I get steady pay and full benefits - and plenty of sunshine and exercise.'


   By 9 a.m., Rene Morales' T-shirt clings to his chest, soaked in sweat.
   With the soft backside of a dark stained leather glove, he mops his forehead and draws a quick breath before heaving a black trash bag into the garbage truck he rides five days a week. Still standing at the curb, he flips in another bag with a practiced ease as he drags a 50-gallon plastic can toward the rear of the truck with his other arm.
   Maggots sprinkle from the can as he shakes loose the newspapers, a pizza box and two more open bags of trash stuffed inside. The stench of what appears to have been a barbecued chicken spills out, along with half a molded onion.
   Hustling back to set it at the curb, he reaches for another can as the driver slowly eases the truck forward at an unrelenting pace.
   For his efforts, Morales, 29, earns just more than $6 an hour - $480 every two weeks before taxes - for just over $13,000 a year, qualifying his family for a multitude of social welfare programs. An Army veteran, Morales supplements the low pay as a National Guardsman and manages to take care of his family.
   But can hopping, as it's known by the workers who do it, offers a clean living, Morales said.
   Up before the sun, he's at work by 7 a.m. And by the time most people are sipping their first cup of coffee at work, he's had more exercise than many will get in a week.
   "It's hard work, not something that everyone can do," he said. "But it's a good job. I get steady pay and full benefits - and plenty of sunshine and exercise.
   As a father of four, that's important. But even more important is the time the job allows him to spend with his wife, Nora, and four children, ages 4 to 14.
   Most days, the three-person crews that work the city's 36 solid waste routes finish their day before 1 p.m., while still getting paid for an 8-hour day. And if they're not late, and work well, the city gives them four hours of overtime each week.
   "As soon as we finish our routes, we can go home," Morales said. "So, we hustle. Any time spent slacking is time out of the rest of our day."
   For Morales and his partner, that means at least five hours of perpetual motion, jogging alongside the slow-moving truck and hopping up to the knee-high platform he rides on at the back. Each man lifts and throws up to five tons of trash a day into the waist-high rear of a truck.
   Teamwork is essential
   As morning temperatures rise into the low 90s, Morales pauses only to chug cool water from a bottle he keeps tucked into the hydraulic lines that run along the side of the Pack-More trash truck.
   The truck holds about five tons of trash. On Mondays and Tuesdays, they fill it twice. Wednesdays - when they work until 4 p.m. picking up light brush - and Thursdays and Fridays, they usually can work their route with just one trip to the dump.
   Working as a team, Morales said, is critical to move a small mountain of others' waste quickly.
   "A good crew works well together, you get a rhythm," he said. "We don't have to talk much. We just get to know what the other one does, and the driver knows how we both work.
   "When you are working well with someone, it goes faster, and you can get off sooner," he said.
   Careless motorists, fire ants and maggots rank as the top hazards of the job.
   "You've got to be careful when you grab the bottom of a can, because the ants will get you," he said. "And a lot of motorists really don't care about you, they'll just pass on by and if you're not looking, you could turn around and get hit."
   Morales takes pride in a job well done.
   "We don't toss the cans. We set them back up, where we found them," he said. "You want to keep a good relationship with the customer, or else they might call and complain and you'll get reprimanded.
   "But basically, it's just that the nicer you are to people, the nicer they are to you."
   Part of the job
   Between the hazards of traffic, stuffing bags into a moving hydraulic crusher and the steady bending, twisting and lifting, there are many opportunities to get hurt.
   Morales, who has been hopping cans for six months, said he so far has avoided serious injury.
   "I pulled a muscle in my back once, but I've never really been hurt," he said.
   A Corpus Christi native, Morales was an Army brat. Homesick in Junction City, Kan., he dropped out of high school and joined the Navy after earning his GED.
   There, he studied electronics. But after four years stationed at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, he left and joined the National Guard and worked various refinery jobs. Four years later, he joined the Army as a supply specialist, leaving after three years to work again in the refineries and with the National Guard.
   In the military, he said, he had too little time to spend with his children. Then, he would leave before they woke up, and he often found himself eating his dinner alone in the kitchen when he got home.
   "Now, I get home, take a shower, eat lunch," Morales said. "And my wife and I can go pick them up after school and spend the day with them until it's time for them to go to bed."
   And there are other benefits to the job.
   "People throw out just about anything," Morales said.
   When he can get out on the links, for example, Morales plays with a set of clubs he recovered.
   "They're kind of old, but they work," he said. "People toss out TVs, microwaves, stereos, you name it. Some things just seem to be less valuable to some people than others."
   Another memorable find was a box of 1960s vintage Playboy magazines that an elderly man left out on the curb, Morales said. And when he finds clothes, Morales sometimes take them home to his wife, who cleans them up and sells them at a garage sale or donates them to charity.
   Hard work
   A.C. Hernandez, a supervisor for the refuse collectors, said that after six months can-hoppers can apply to become drivers, and the city will assist them to earn a license. And refuse collectors, like other city employees, also get first crack at many other city jobs.
   Hernandez said the retirement benefits are a draw. But most new hires don't last very long.
   Absenteeism - about 25 percent on any given day - is a chronic problem. Given the fact that they work in heat, rain and cold, it's hardly surprising, he said.
   Morales said he wants to become a driver soon. The pay is about a $1 an hour better, but there are other benefits.
   "If you're a driver, you don't have to dump cans," he said, smiling.
   Still, Morales said he wishes people could better understand what garbage men go through each day. Respect and kindness surely would follow, he said.
   "It's not a great job, but it pays," he said. "I work hard at it, we all do.
   "For some, who don't have much of an education, it's the best they will ever get. But for me, it's something that I'm willing to sacrifice for until I get something better."



Staff writer James A. Suydam can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at suydamj@caller.com

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