GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Greensboro city workers are demanding more pay and better benefits.

They want to be paid at least $20 an hour and daily overtime pay among other things.

City Councilwoman Sharon Hightower asked for a pay equity study to be conducted months ago to work with accurate data rather than assumptions.

She tells FOX8 the entire city council recently received an email from a city worker asking to be treated the same as far as pay and benefits as workers in other departments.

The people we spoke to in Greensboro Thursday afternoon told FOX8 it takes a lot to keep the city running and workers should be compensated fairly for it.

Lyle Shargent enjoys his quiet neighborhood on Old Trey Brooke Drive in Greensboro.

He admires how clean the neighborhood is, but from time-to-time he notices trash is left behind.

He said, “Sometimes they can get to the late part of the day, and I know they are busy everywhere else too, this isn’t their only route. Sometimes the finger trash if you will doesn’t get picked up.”

When we told him city workers including sanitation and water resource employees wanted to get paid more for the jobs they do, He didn’t think twice about responding.

“I’m actually for it. I know they have a really hard job to do. It’s smelly.. the end of their day is sometimes pretty late,, so yes, I would support that,” said Shargent.

“We start our conversations with police pay and we end our conversations with police pay and we throw the rest of us somewhere in the middle,” said Councilwoman Sharon Hightower. “It troubles me deeply, bc there are guys who have been sitting on that stinky trash truck for 19 years that’s hard work too, It is, and to ask them to do it in 95-degree-weather it’s just as hazardous as the next job.

“I wish we could think about that,” said Hightower.

She says oftentimes Greensboro has lost city workers to surrounding areas.

“We have lost clerks, that have gone to other cities, we lost a lot of employees who left to go to other cities to get paid. We have trained them too,” said Hightower.

Shargent says every city department is important, and he believes all city workers deserve proper pay for the hard job they do each day.

“Something better than what they’re getting,” said Shargent.

The Working Class and Houseless Organizing Alliance (WHOA) plans to hold a rally for city workers outside Greensboro City Hall on April 4 beginning at 5:30 p.m. They plan to address the city council afterward to advocate for themselves before this year’s budget is finalized.