NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Thousands of MTA employees failed to complete several state-mandated anti-sexual harassment and violence prevention training courses in 2017 and 2019, according to an MTA inspector general's report released Wednesday.
Notably, only 58% of subway workers and 43% of Metro-North employees in 2019 completed the required training.
According to Acting Inspector General Elizabeth Keating's report, the office's review followed a 2020 probe by the OIG Investigations unit that flagged concerns that some employees failed to comply with the state-required training. Overall, the unit found the level of compliance varied by department within the MTA.
However, the audit found some units within the agency were better at complying with the training than others. Employees with the New York City Transit Department of Buses and Long Island Rail Road showed the highest rates of completion, between 80 and 100%, while the NYCT Department of Subways showed the lowest rates — with most courses under 60% and some as low as 33%.
Metro-North Railroad employees improved the most in terms of compliance, advancing from the 70% range in 2017 to over 90% in 2019.
Despite the MTA's failure to comply during former Governor Andrew Cuomo's tenure, in 2018 he signed a state law that requires all employers to provide sexual harassment training once a year.
"It is likely that thousands of MTA employees did not receive training in sexual harassment prevention in 2019 as required by State law," the report said. "However, because the numbers are unavailable, we cannot determine the scope of this non-compliance."
As of late 2021, the report found the agency still "did not have formal policies or procedures" to ensure employees completed the training.
The MTA responded by promising to make a number of changes, including establishing a "All-Agency Mandated Training Policy" by the end of 2022 and eventually establish "specific compliance goals" and "clear consequences for employees for not completing mandated training."
"As the inspector general is aware, following an agency-wide reorganization, new procedures are already in development to increase training completion rates from the 2019 figures cited in the report," said MTA spokesman Michael Cortez. "Those updated procedures are designed to dramatically increase compliance."
