We Must Take Action Now to Protect Ourselves & the Public from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Transit workers have been abandoned on the front lines of the deadly COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic by the Governor, management and our own union’s elected leaders. To protect ourselves and the public, we now have no choice but to take action ourselves.

We are being pushed to continue driving buses, working platforms, breathing the stale re-circulated air of their trains and cramming into tiny crew rooms without being provided basic protective equipment and sanitized conditions. As a result of these criminal policies, today’s news confirms that 14 Local 100 members have already tested positive for the virus and the real number of infected workers is surely far higher. It is now up to us to stop this madness. 

Transit workers have legal rights to refuse to work in dangerous conditions. It’s urgently necessary for Local 100 members to understand these rights and use them. And that’s especially the case after our union leadership released a bulletin yesterday that amounts to a death sentence to transit workers, our loved ones and members of the general public.

Let’s quickly look at how the Utano leadership of our union has gone along with management’s criminal refusal to provide us with safe working conditions, then focus on the actions we should take now.

LOCAL 100 LEADERS PUSHING
DEADLY MTA POLICIES

Yesterday (days after the Utano leadership of Local 100 released a “Coronavirus Update” that made clear they were protecting themselves by cancelling union meetings for the next two months), a new Local 100 bulletin appeared, promoting MTA Chairman Foye’s “key points” in a “Q & A with Workers” that they staged on Youtube to discuss working amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The bulletin did not say a word about our rights to refuse to work in unsafe conditions and simply repeated management’s points, including how management will continue to refuse to provide us with basic protections!

Shockingly, the Local 100 bulletin states without complaint that “The MTA will not be providing testing for the virus,” despite our high risk of exposure. We know that the Trump Administration sabotaged the development and distribution of test kits and that there’s still a shortage of them, but the MTA should still be committed to providing the tests as soon as they’re available.

But worst of all, the Local 100 leadership buried in their bulletin’s eighth point the fact that the MTA is continuing to refuse to provide us with masks or gloves unless “they are part of your regular PPE.” As if working with the riding public during a deadly pandemic is part of our regular job description!

All that MTA management has done is finally reverse the deadly directive made by MTA Chief Safety Officer Patrick T. Warren weeks ago that told transit workers not to wear masks and directed that:

“If a supervisor/manager is made aware of an employee wearing a mask, they should tell the employee that masks may not be worn during working hours.” (‘Memorandum to All MTA Employees,’ March 6, 2020)

Now at least the elected union officers who sold us out and joined management in repeating this deadly advice can stop doing so, like RTO VP Eric Loegel who shamefully backed up management’s opposition to masks, admitting in writing that he had “debates” with members about this and offering the sick excuse that “We’re [Loegel and management] trying to reduce unnecessary panic and hysteria among our members.”

Clearly we cannot expect our sellout leaders to stand up for us. So it’s up to us to know our rights to protect ourselves and the riding public.

1. WE HAVE RIGHTS TO STAY HOME

Local 100’s top leaders seem to be keeping this a secret from the members, but we have been officially informed that in response to the Governor’s State of Emergency, the MTA has agreed that effective immediately and until at least April 15:

“The Authority has temporarily suspended the Doctor’s Certification requirement for all absences of five days or less.”

This agreement includes employees on the sick control lists. It means that every member has the right to stay home due to illness without having to prove their condition. This agreement has been publicized to Car Equipment Department members in writing and confirmed by several union officers including Conductor/Tower’s Division Chair Raul Lugo.

Therefore, in the interests of not just our own health but that of the riding public, transit workers who feel symptoms of illness should not hesitate to use their sick time without fear of repercussions. We can take five days off work without having to produce medical documentation. If we feel better and return to work only to feel sick again, we should take off sick again immediately and again have the right to stay out for five days before medical documentation would be required.

Tony Utano and the other top officials of our union seem to be keeping this agreement secret from the members for fear that we will use them to conduct a sickout. Encouraging or conducting a sickout would be an illegal violation of the Taylor Law and we are not doing so. We are simply reporting this fact, just like we can report that the threat of a sickout by New York public school teachers probably saved countless lives by forcing Mayor De Blasio to close the city’s schools.

2. WE HAVE THE RIGHT

TO REFUSE UNSAFE WORK

If you are healthy and believe you must report to work, all Local 100 members must understand that our contract gives us the legal right to refuse to work in conditions that violate rules and laws regarding health and safety on the job.

Right now Governor Cuomo, MTA Chairman Foye and the rest of management are trying to have it both ways by officially encouraging us “to follow safety guidelines including … social distancing” while demanding that we keep working under conditions that make that impossible. Cuomo has made clear that means keeping six feet distance from others (New York Times, March 16), so without proper masks, eye-protection and gloves, if you’re often unable to keep six feet distance from others in performing your job, that means it’s unsafe and in violation of the safety guidelines that the MTA is promoting! 

            Our contract is clear, when an employee or group of employees believes that work is in violation of safety rules or laws, we have the right to stop the work and request a Safety Dispute Resolution Form from our Supervisor who is contractually required to have the form on them and available at all times. We also have the right to speak to a union representative before filling out that form, so after requesting representation we can wait until a union rep contacts us. The Supervisors on site must then respond and attempt to resolve the safety concerns and the MTA’s Office of System Safety and head of the Department in question, as well as the TWU Director of Safety and Health, must be notified immediately upon completion of the Safety Dispute Resolution form. At the conclusion of this process, if a decision is made that the work is not in violation of a safety rule or law in can resume.

GENERAL DEMANDS FOR SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS

The more we know our rights and use them to protect our safety and that of the riding public, the more we can force the Governor and MTA management to listen to our demands for safe working conditions amidst this pandemic. We believe these should include:

• The MTA must provide N95 or N99 masks, protective eyewear and gloves to all transit workers who want them;
  
• Regular cleaning and sanitizing of operating cabs and equipment between each trip and also of break rooms regularly; 
• Soap, hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes readily available throughout the system;
   
• That the MTA provide COVID-19 testing free of charge to all members upon request, and that the MTA regularly report statistics on the spread of the virus within the MTA workforce and proactive notify personnel if there is a reasonable belief they may have been exposed;
  
• No overcrowded crew rooms or work facilities. We all know that many of the TA crew facilities are old and so incredibly small that it’s impossible to keep 3 feet, let alone 6 feet away from one another. The MTA must immediately find solutions that allow the proper social distancing or the relevant lines must be shut down until they can. In RTO, key locations include 145^th Street (A/B/C/D), Astoria (N & W), 148^th Street-Lenox (3), New Lots Avenue (3), Utica Avenue (4), and Flatbush Avenue (2 & 5).

We must take every opportunity to exercise our rights and publicize these demands. That will not only advance our immediate interests in protecting the health and safety of workers and the public. It will also contribute to a new sense of solidarity among members and help build an alternative leadership for our union, because we’re now facing the deadly consequences of having a corrupt union leadership that’s in the pocket of the Governor and management.