The MTA is launching a new ad campaign seeking to humanize transit workers in the wake of the brutal stabbing of a subway operator this month — a move that comes as the Transport Workers Union is attempting to negotiate work rules they say will improve train crew safety.
The campaign, which started appearing on buses and subways Tuesday, features photos of NYC Transit employees along with their name and a personal fact about them.
“Get to know your driver, Ceasar, one of 12,000 bus operators who keep New York moving,” reads one ad, which goes on to note that Ceasar is a baseball card collector who’s been on the job 17 years.
Another, of bus driver Loren Parisella, adds that she rides a motorcycle. Station agent Robin Sutton, a 30-year veteran of NYC Transit, likes strawberry shortcake.
“Transit workers are parents, grandparents, they’re mothers, daughters, sisters,” said Interim NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, who started his career as a track worker with the Long Island Rail Road. “They coach Little League, they have garden clubs, book clubs — they are us and we are them.”
“They are our neighbors,” he added. “New York would not be possible without the dedicated public workforce that comes in every day to support the greatest city of this world.”
The ad campaign is meant to humanize the MTA’s 50,000 employees amid a spate of assaults on transit workers.
Crichlow said the campaign hoped to “change the behavior of those who don’t see [transit workers]. They see them for the function that they do, but not for the person that they are.”
The push comes two weeks after train operator Myran Pollack was viciously stabbed by a passenger he asked, following standard procedure, to exit his No. 4 train after it reached the last stop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents some 40,000 bus and subway workers, has called on the MTA to institute substantive changes to work rules in the wake of the attack, including having two-person train crews work together to clear a subway at its last stop.
Crichlow said negotiations with the TWU were ongoing, as were efforts to work with law enforcement and prosecutors.
“This is a lot larger of an issue than just saying, ‘Can we have a conductor assist a train operator?’ ” Crichlow said.
“We’re not on opposing sides on this — we want our employees to be safe,” he added. “We’ll continue to work with the TWU as best as possible.”
In a statement Tuesday, however, union leadership said the MTA’s ad campaign “rings hollow” while they await the transit agency’s response to their proposals on work rules and deploying additional law enforcement officers to end-of-line subway stations.
“Our proposal is reasonable, cost-effective and will do a lot to allay our members’ justified fears of being confronted in the performance of their duties,” TWU Local 100‘s president, Richard Davis, said. “Instead, NYCT is talking about how our members excel in customer service. It’s tone-deaf.”
