Preg worker reassigned, but MTA suit eyes others
Women working for the MTA say its leaders don’t do enough to protect them — especially those who are pregnant.
The on-the-job problems faced by female transit workers were thrust into the spotlight last month when a pregnant subway conductor, Crystal Young, sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority after she was sent home without pay.
A pair of doctors told Young (inset) it was unsafe for her to do her job while carrying a child — and the agency said there was no suitable work available for her.
Young dropped her demand for emergency relief last week after the MTA found her a new and suitable job assignment. But her lawyer, Anthony Consiglio, is pressing her lawsuit in hope of winning better work conditions for pregnant MTA workers.
“We look forward to addressing the bigger issues of how much accommodation a large employer like transit is required to give a worker with a pregnancy-related medical condition under the 2013 and 2016 additions to the city and state human rights laws,” Consiglio said.
Sexism is visible to many women working at the maledominated transit agency.
Subway conductor Tandie Thompson, 35, found herself in a similar situation as Young last year when she became pregnant with her first child. She’s been out of work since last August, and has been on the mend for the last four months after giving birth via C-section.
Thompson asked what the MTA could do to accommodate her, and was offered a job handing out equipment to other employees. “It still required me to lift heavy stuff, so that didn’t work for me, either,” Thompson said.
Like Young, Thompson was told there were no desk jobs available for her, so she tapped into her savings and used her insurance to stay afloat while she prepared to give birth and later nursed her baby. She has been without a paycheck since August.
“This is one of many in an ongoing litany of discrimination, abuse and prejudice against black women and women in general at MTA and its related affiliates,” said retired Transport Workers Union Local 100 official Marc Albritton.
“This type of abuse of workers will continue until the MTA suffers a massive class-action suit,” Albritton said.
MTA workers represented by Local 100 don’t enjoy the same paid family leave provisions enjoyed by private-sector workers under a state law Gov. Cuomo signed in 2016 that requires employers to provide 12 weeks’ paid leave following the birth of a child.
Local 100 members will have to win those benefits through contract talks. Under current rules, those workers get three weeks of paid leave following the birth of a child.
Union negotiators are now pushing for six weeks’ paid leave for employees who give birth to twins, or more than one child at once.
Unionized MTA supervisors get no paid family leave — but will be able to take two weeks off after they have new children if they ratify a new contract negotiated by the Subway Surface Supervisors Association.
“We’ve never had that before,” said Supervisors Association President Michael Carrube. “My membership is now younger — at least half are within child-bearing age.”
Some women employed by the MTA say they would not require as much paid family leave if the agency did a better job of accommodating their needs.
“The job way back when was only designated for men,” said Thompson. “Now that there are women on the job and it’s 2019, they should have come up with some sort of a plan for females. Co-workers have told me they don’t expand their families over fear of what they’re going to do.”
MTA spokesman Shams Tarek asserted the agency is a “great place to work and is absolutely committed to accommodating and supporting all of its employees,” including pregnant women.
Tarek said the MTA is not required to grant accommodations that constitute undue hardship for the agency, and that it is unable to provide jobs to every pregnant woman who needs one.