In the last two days since the storm subsided eight million New Yorkers have had the most graphic demonstration possible of what our City looks like without bus and subway service. Hundreds of thousands of cars streamed in. Manhattan became a parking lot as untold numbers of New Yorkers endured unprecedented traffic hell. Going one city block often took as much as 15 minutes.
Managers and politicians talk a lot about how much it costs to pay civil servants and cover our pensions. But in the last few days, there weren’t enough cops, firefighters, traffic agents – or transit workers – to stop looting, guard intersections, drive buses, or pump out flooded stations. When an emergency like this strikes, there are far too few of us. Now no one can dispute this.
Today, thanks to your work, buses are back at full service levels while service on some subway lines has returned in two sections, cut off by the continued blackout in Lower Manhattan and the conditions in the East River tubes. Before service was restored, MOW crews checked every signal, every power hook-up and every inch of track on those lines. At this point, three of the tubes have been completely cleared of water and clearing the others is well underway.
In the news they are saying that the Army Corps of Engineers is sending in personnel and pumps to bail out the MTA. In fact, they are talking about the auto tunnels and the Port Authority’s PATH tunnels. Transit workers are pumping out our subway tunnels and transit workers will restore them to working order. We appreciate that the fact that President Obama has put the resources of the federal government at the disposal of stricken areas, and we will remember it on Tuesday, Election Day. But let’s keep the facts straight.
Past experience is that crises like this raise a lot of issues including pay and safety. Top officers have logged hours and hours talking to management to try to minimize these problems, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any.
Pay. The position of the union is that you are entitled to the highest rate of pay for which you may be eligible. For example, if you are in a transportation title and swiped in, you are entitled to full run pay even if you made no runs and were sent home after a few hours. Members prevented from getting in to their reporting locations and reported to alternative locations or called in are entitled to full pay. We urge all members to keep a log of your days and hours. Every case where there are issues will be taken up by officers and reps. Cases that are not resolved will go to arbitration. We will get every penny due to us.
Safety. Union safety teams have been in the field, even at the height of the storm. But the front line of safety is members on the job. Do not accept unsafe work. Trigger the safety resolution process if you need to protect life and limb. The unusual conditions of work, especially in subways, open the door to management and supervision making it up as they go. Do not allow anyone to put you in harm’s way.
Local 100 members can take pride in how we have handled this challenge, from shutting down the system in orderly fashion, to riding out the storm in towers and MOW quarters, to restoring service and repairing damage. What we are doing is going to go down in history. Hold your heads high and keep your eye on safety.