Photo Courtesy of Andrew Cashin/MTA
Comptroller Stringer is urging the MTA to ensure that the contractors providing subway cleaning services are paying prevailing wages and benefits to their employees.
By Michael V. Cusenza
City Comptroller Scott Stringer recently sent a letter to Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman & CEO Patrick Foye urging the MTA to ensure that the contractors providing subway cleaning services are paying prevailing wages and benefits to their employees. Highlighting concerns that these workers are not being paid what they are owed under the law, Comptroller Stringer is already investigating one contractor for underpayment of prevailing wages on a cleaning contract for subway train interiors. Stringer informed the MTA of his determination that Labor Law Article Nine applies to the cleaning of trains as well as subway stations.
“For the past year, the employees tasked with disinfecting the subway have risked their lives keeping our massive transit system clean,” Stringer said. “These essential workers have faced extraordinarily challenging conditions, often without sufficient supplies and protective equipment. It is critical and common sense that we pay subway cleaners every cent of wages that they are owed for their invaluable work. There will be no economic recovery for New York without a clean, safe, reliable subway system – and the MTA must not shortchange the very workers who are crucial to ensuring that millions of New Yorkers and our frontline workforce can use our transit system safely.”
Stringer also noted that last May he sent a letter to the MTA concerning the payment of prevailing wages to employees of New York City Transit contractors that perform the important task of cleaning and disinfecting subway stations and trains.
“On May 18, 2020, I wrote to you concerning the payment of prevailing wages to employees of NYCT contractors that perform the important task of cleaning and disinfecting subway stations and trains. However, it has come to my attention that NYCT is not requiring payment of prevailing wages to employees on contracts for cleaning the interiors of subway trains,” the comptroller wrote.
“It is critical to ensure that the contractors providing these cleaning services are paying prevailing wages and benefits to their employees. Nearly a year after these cleanings began and with no indication that they will stop in the near-term future, I am concerned that these workers are not being paid what they are owed under the law. My office is currently investigating one NYCT contractor for underpayment of prevailing wages on a cleaning contract for subway train interiors. We will continue to monitor the work on these contracts and accept complaints from workers, with an eye to recovering unpaid prevailing wages for these workers retroactively,” Stringer added. “Once again, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting tremendous economic strain on New York City’s workforce and vulnerable communities. These workers are risking their own health and that of their families to ensure that New Yorkers—especially our frontline workforce—can use our transit system safely.”
