In the wake of not one but two subway deaths, New York City Transit Chief, Howard H. Roberts Jr., wrote an open letter to all 47,000+ transit workers asking them to work safer.
Mr. Roberts, who started the job in mid-April, said he was taking the deaths last month of the two track workers, Daniel Boggs and Marvin Franklin, in accidents five days apart, “personally” and said that he felt “responsible for everything that happens or does not happen at NYC Transit.”
The letter was sent via email to employees as well as posted around work sites. So if he was so “personally” touched by the issue, why couldn’t they mail the letters to each employee? They probably get a postage discount, so would have only cost about $25k. That’s chump change for the MTA. That’s probably what they spend on rat poison every month.
In the mean time, all non-essential construction projects are still suspended. I wonder…if you work on one of the suspended crews, do you still get paid? It’s a union gig, so I would imagine you would.
SUBWAYblogger 
While I can see your point, wouldn’t those mailings be an unnecessary expense? Who knows, maybe they will send something more personal out. This could have been a quick way to spread the word instantly.
Funny you mention rat poisoning as I saw two of them yesterday in the LES.
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Yes we still get paid. But if you think we were sitting around our houses watching nick at night your wrong. We went to safety refresher courses. And some went to yards to clean roadways.Rails were replaced, signals were repaired and circuit breakers were maintianed Still others inspected tracks as is federaly required. As for the letter, I havent seen it but Howard Roberts is at least showing his concern for our well bieng. We have had other workers die in the past. This is the first time I can remember that an MTA President came to a workers funeral. We would like to think that Governor Spitzer chose Mr. Roberts to restore labor management relations. And I hope he will pass several safety bills that our union sent to Albany.
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There was a post on another thread about a device that might have kept this from happening. The device referred to is a Protracker that helps workers know if a train is near. You can read more about it at http://www.protran1.com. It looks good to me, what do others think?
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I saw the ProTran 1 web site and heard from a friend that works for the TA that the products were impressive and that the testing was very successful.
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