Resume Subway Work Following Safety Course; Refresher Given To All Personnel To Avoid Fatalities

By RICHARD STEIER

New York City Transit resumed normal track maintenance operations May 4, four days after suspending them in the wake of the deaths of two Track Workers in less than a week.

REACHING OUT TO UNION: New York City Transit President Howard H. Roberts has tried to change the culture in the agency by stressing collaboration rather than confrontation in dealing with Transport Workers' Union Local 100. In a letter to employees following the deaths of two Track Workers, he said transit personnel have a more dangerous job than paratroopers because for those jumping out of planes, 'The danger is a lot more obvious.'

The resumption of regular repair and construction activities occurred after track workers were retrained on all elements of track safety, and a day before the funeral services for Marvin Franklin. The 22-year veteran Track Worker died April 29 at age 55 after he was struck by a Queens-bound G train while crossing over to the A/C line at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn St. station in Brooklyn.

Didn't Know of Switch

Five days prior to his death, 42-year-old Daniel Boggs had been killed when he was struck by a downtown 3 train that had been diverted to the express track because of a stalled train on the local track. His work crew had not been notified of the switch by the control tower, with NYC Transit officials saying that they had not been aware that the crew had begun its duties at the Columbus Circle station.

The two fatalities prompted a "safety stand-down," under which nonessential work on 18 separate maintenance and capital construction projects covering 12 subway lines was suspended. During that 4-day, 8-hour period, emergency repairs and track inspections were conducted with full flagging rules - cautioning Train Operators to proceed slowly because of work crews nearby - in effect. All Maintenance of Way staff was given a refresher course in flagging requirements and other rules and regulations for working on the tracks.

Appropriate instruction was also given to Mechanics and Road Car Inspectors in the Division of Car Equipment, with training also provided to Train Operators, Conductors and Tower Operators, as well as Maintainers, Cleaners, Mechanics and Staten Island Railroad employees.

Two separate Board of Inquiry investigations are under way into the deaths of Mr. Boggs and Mr. Franklin.

'Transit,' TWU Cooperate

The response to the twin tragedies gave evidence of a much-closer working relationship between the new head of NYC Transit, Howard H. Roberts Jr., and Transport Workers' Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, than had been the case when Lawrence G. Reuter headed the agency. The new head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Lee Sander, has also taken steps to cultivate a better relationship with the union than existed under soon-to-depart MTA Chairman Peter S. Kalikow.

"It certainly does mark a change in what we've seen," said Local 100 Secretary-Treasurer Ed Watt a few hours after the regular maintenance work had resumed. Mr. Roberts showed a willingness to listen to the union's ideas while traveling with Mr. Toussaint to the wakes for the two transit workers, but Mr. Watt said a truer measure would be whether he could achieve "a change in the entire culture."

Must Get Message Out

That, he said, would involve convincing first-level supervisors that they had more to gain from putting together innovative operating procedures in collaboration with the union than by "flogging" workers in the disciplinary process.

Mr. Roberts sent a letter to all transit workers last week that seemed to underscore his intentions.

He noted that when he first took the job, he had said his top priorities were "safety and security."

That made it particularly painful, he said, to have lost two employees who "were examples of everything that is good and decent in this world."

'Break Vicious Cycle'

He said he would reserve judgment about what went wrong until the Boards of Inquiry had completed their probes. The safety stand-down, however, was "about getting everyone's attention and trying to break the vicious cycle in which we find ourselves," Mr. Roberts stated in the letter.

As part of that effort that he hoped would also lead to greater labor-management cooperation, the agency President said he had appointed TWU Vice President Curtis Tate to serve as a member of the Board of Inquiry for the Hoyt-Schermerhorn incident.

He pledged to make the transit system "as safe as it is humanly possible to make it. I will see to it that all of you have the equipment and the environment to work safely."

'Live by Rules'

But he cautioned, "Unless each and every one of you live by [the agency's safety] rules on a daily basis, more employees inevitably will die."

He noted that when he was an Army paratrooper, he and his colleagues meticulously followed procedures because "no one wanted to fall 1,200 feet in three seconds or less. The only difference between being a paratrooper and working many jobs at NYC Transit is that jumping out of planes was a lot safer. The danger is just a lot more obvious."

Mr. Watt said he had not gotten much member feedback to that point about the letter, but added, "When you speak from your experiences to other people's experiences, it's very powerful. He showed he can empathize."