WASHINGTON — Federal transportation safety agency has yet to enforce provisions of President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure law, which would protect workers from assaults upon transit continue up, according to a group representing transit unions.
“Our members include bus and train transit operators, station agents and car cleaners, mechanics and other frontline workers. All of them are at risk of assault or worse every day they arrive to work,” labor unions wrote in a letter addressed to the Federal Transit Administration (or FTA) part of the Transportation Department.
Co-signers include Amalgamated Transit Union (the country’s largest transit union), the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, and the Transport Workers Union.
“President Biden promised to protect these workers, and that promise was enshrined in law as part the BIL,” the unions stated. The BIL is the bipartisan infrastructure law. In November, Biden signed into law the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Transit drivers have been the subject of many assaults, and these incidents, which were a problem for years, became more serious during the coronavirus epidemic. Unions representing front-line workers in transit have taken legislative action, including the infrastructure law.
The letter stated that “it has been nearly four months since the passage the BIL and transit workers –who, like us, just want to go work every day without worrying about whether they might be attacked or killed — have continued to face violence in the workplace.”
Unions point out several incidents, including one in which a Detroit Transportation Department driver was stabbed and told to get off the bus. Another was last month, when a suspect quickly got off of the bus, grabbed a branch from a tree and beat the driver before fleeing.
A bus driver in Detroit was also killed by the coronavirus, two weeks after posting a video complaining that a passenger refused to cover her mouth when coughing.
Unions ask for the FTA’s implementation of a provision that requires them collect accurate data on transit worker assaults. They also request the FTA to reform its Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan process in order to include workers’ voices, incorporate measures to reduce assault in all transit systems, and update its national safety program to address public health concerns.
In addition to the rise in assaults on transit workers, passenger-to-passenger violence has also increased — putting workers in a difficult position.
In recent months, several people were stabbed and assaulted at New York City stations. A 40-year old woman was killed by a train at Times Square subway station in January.
Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department said that bus drivers take safety very seriously. Sometimes, this means mediating and reaching a place where law enforcement may intervene.
Regan stated that the FTA has been given time by the unions to implement the law, and that they should be “able to walk and chew gum simultaneously.”
“We want them to have space but, at this point in time, four months later… we continue seeing more incidents. We believe that national awareness and the pressure to move them is the right thing.
The FTA did no immediate reply to a request for comment.
