NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber and other transit leaders urged New York state lawmakers over the weekend to pass a bill that would protect transit workers from assaults by extending criminal charges to those who attack thousands more workers, as the number of attacks has "grown and grown in recent years."
"We write to you asking that, before the 2022 Legislative Session adjourns, you address one of the egregious deficiencies in the New York State law protecting transit workers from attacks," Lieber and six other transit chiefs wrote in the Saturday letter to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, which was obtained by the New York Post.
Individuals who assault or harass certain transit workers, like conductors or train operators, can be charged with assault in the second degree under current law.
Now, officials are asking the state legislature to adjust the law by including 11,000 more transit workers, such as station customer assistants, traffic checkers, ticket collection agents and their supervisors, who are not currently covered.
It would also protect these workers on commuter rail lines, like the Long Island Rail Road.
"MTA frontline workers have been heroic during the COVID pandemic, keeping the New York City metropolitan region moving. Unfortunately, however, in recent years there has been a trend of increasing attacks on transit workers," the letter said.
MTA statistics currently show that workers are targeted twice a week on average in 2022, more than a week after the state Labor Department chastised the authority for failing to record over 200 assaults against agents in 2019 and 2020.
"Our employees should not be subjected to physical abuse on a day-to-day basis, including punching, spitting, pushing and other violent behavior," read the letter, which was also signed by Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Tony Utano and Mark Henry, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056, among other officials.
The MTA also reportedly favors Queens state Sen. Leroy Comrie's legislation to make it a class A misdemeanor if a person strikes, shoves or kicks a transit worker, though that measure is unlikely to pass before the session ends.
The agency's request comes amid a 57.5% increase in the seven major crime categories in the subway system this year compared to 2021, according to the most recent NYPD data, as of last Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD have sought to reduce transit crime, including by restarting the department's 1990's night patrol unit.
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