Gov’t Findings Underscore What NYC Transit Workers Have Been Saying…The System is Full of ‘Dead Spots’
Transit workers tell Work-Bites recent accidents and the death of a co-worker are indicative of MTA bosses continually putting service and speed before worker safety.
By Joe Maniscalco
New preliminary findings recently released by the National Transportation Safety Board looking into January 4’s subway collision on the No. 1 line near the 96th Street station in Manhattan corroborate statements from outspoken Transit workers who tell Work-Bites the system in rife with radio “dead spots.”
The NTSB’s initial findings released on Thursday, Jan. 25 state a subway “flagger” involved in the collision between two northbound trains “lost radio communications with the transit system supervisor near 96th Street Station,” and as a result — the “transit system supervisor did not receive the flagger’s instruction to stop, the train passed by a signal requiring a stop at the end of the 96th Street Station platform, and the collision occurred.”
About 22 passengers and 3 crew members were reportedly hurt in that collision, which took place around 3 p.m.
“We've been complaining about poor radio communication and dead spots in the system ever since I've been a conductor — and I know there were complaints before I got there. Nothing has changed,” MTA conductor Tramell Thompson told Work-Bites just prior to the NTSB’s preliminary findings being released. “These dead spots all over the system, they’re are on the Brighton line, you have them going across the bridges…and nobody looks at how management is culpable.”
Another train traveling on the elevated F and G lines high over Coney Island jumped the rails near the West Eighth Street-New York Aquarium and Neptune Avenue stations around 12:25 p.m. on January 10 — less than a week after the 96th Street collision in Manhattan.
No injuries were reported in that incident, but Thompson says the safety railing in that area is “rickety,” and the whole incident could have easily turned catastrophic.
“That train was maybe like a foot, two feet from going over that railing,” he says. “It could have really been a different type of story if that train would have shifted another two feet.”
Sadly it was, indeed, a different type of story on Nov. 29 when another subway flagger named Hilarion Joseph was struck and killed by a D train traveling northbound near the 34th Street-Herald Square station in Manhattan around 12:15 a.m. Hilarion was 57-years-old and the father of six.
Transit workers tell Work-Bites that all three of these incidents are indicative of MTA bosses continually putting service and speed before worker safety.
“Absolutely,” track worker Todd Brown tells Work-Bites. “My biggest fear is that we're going to respond to a call for dropped property and somebody is going to get hit by a train. Every day, we know that we might not make it home.”
Richard Davis, head of TWU Local 100 — the union representing New York City Transit workers — characterizes the situation as an “ongoing battle.”
“We have already reinvigorated our safety team to become more effective in ensuring management keeps safety a top priority,” Davis tells Work-Bites. “It's a grassroots effort born out of necessity because we understand that in the absence of prioritized safety, we must look out for ourselves.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority declined to comment when Work-Bites contacted the agency about this story.
With regards to the radio “dead zones” — Davis says the union will be “more in tune with what our members are saying, making sure we know where the issues are to rectify immediately.”
“We will be making sure we look at that very closely — we will hone in on what needs to be fixed,” Davis added.
That’s good news for Transit workers — especially outspoken critics of the current TWU Local 100 leadership who charge the union is failing to adequately stand up to MTA bosses.
“Our safety team is very weak,” Transit worker Evangeline Byars tells Work-Bites. “They don’t challenge management, we get nothing. The MTA is happy with it because we’re not complaining, we’re not stopping jobs, we’re not saying take these trains out of service. So, as long as we’re not saying anything, then it is what it is.”
Thompson adds, “Everyone knows that it is service over safety, whether they want to admit it or not — safety never comes first — it’s always service.”
Outspoken bus operator Celso Garcia insists it’s the same situation above ground, too.
“[TWU Local 100] signed off on a lot of the speeding up on service at the cost of worker safety,” he says. “They had like a mindset that they were just going to agree with whatever the MTA proposed.”
Davis, meanwhile, says MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber’s “contractor pipeline mentality” is “directly infringing” on TWU Local 100’s “ability to gain on-the-job experience” — and is another issue impacting subway safety.
Byars says it a “good thing” the NTSB is looking into the way the MTA is running New York City’s subway system in the aftermath of Hilarion Joseph’s death and the recent derailment and collision.
“[The NTSB] has stopped them from saying, ‘Oh, it must be worker error’ — because that's what they usually do,” she says. “They throw everything on the worker.”