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NYC Transit Cuts 360 Positions, Including Cleaners
By
Jen Chung
Published Jul 28, 2009
Modified Jul 28, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jul 28, 2009
Modified Jul 28, 2009
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Like most agencies out there, the MTA is making cuts, and NYC Transit is eliminating around 360 jobs. According to the Post, the jobs span cleaning, maintenance, painting and management: "63 of 1,201 subway-car cleaners and 25 of 1,515 station cleaners will be gone next year, Howard Roberts, the MTA's subway and bus chief said yesterday. Between 2009 and 2010, 308 of 2,420 managerial positions at NYC Transit will be cut."
Roberts, NYC Transit president, emphasized, "I will cut somebody sitting in an office very, very quickly compared to somebody who was out cleaning stations and cleaning cars. But this is the reality of the numbers and the [financial] pressure that we're under." He also relayed a gross story about MTA board member Jeffrey Kay reporting an unseemly sight at the Rector Street R/W station: CityRoom describe it delicately, saying that Roberts "described a recent incident in which someone used an entrance to the Rector Street station... as a public bathroom" while the Daily News put it bluntly, "An MTA board member had a smelly firsthand experience of the impact of cutbacks in station cleaners...[the] member came across human feces in a downtown subway station." Roberts said, "We are in a situation where, between 4:30 a.m. and noon, we are not staffed to deal [with things like that]."
NYC Transit has already made cuts to station agents; the Straphangers Campaign's Gene Russianoff was pessimistic when speaking with the Post, "The MTA says they can do more with less. In my experience, they usually do less with less."
Tagged
cleanliness
dirtiness
gross
nyc transit
poop
subway
subway station
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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