FOR THE RECORD

Earlier this month, Channel 7 News broadcast an investigation of New York City Transit track workers, with footage of workers reading in the park and working second jobs while on the agency clock. The news outlet expressed outrage that so much money was being wasted on lackadaisical employees when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was calling for fare hikes, and suggested that fewer Maintenance of Way [MoW] workers be kept on payroll.

The piece featured a response from Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, who claimed that Channel 7 captured isolated incidents and that Track Workers were not allowed on the tracks or near station entrances during rush hour. NYC Transit said it would investigate the incidents.

Responding to the piece last week in a phone interview, Track Equipment Maintainer Dan Dermody explained that many MoW employees during rush hour are not conducting work because it would slow down service, and are there instead to respond to rail problems if they occur.

"We're there for when they have emergencies," he said. "The firefighters don't work for 24 hours when they're in the firehouse, and they get paid."

Queens-based Track Worker Steve St. Hill, who was nearly struck by a train while working on the N line last October, echoed that NYC Transit protocol often keeps workers off the tracks while they are on the clock.

"Track Workers are not allowed on the tracks to work until the supervisor gets permission from [a Rapid Transit Operation] Control Center Superintendent to set up flagging protection for the workers during rush hours in the morning," he said in an e-mail. "Before traveling to a job site after signing in at your track quarters, the following procedures are implemented: Paperwork including [random drug tests], days off and vacations sheets submitted, rules/safety instructions read to Track Workers by supervisors, job assignments distributed, inventory and tools loaded on to trucks for delivery, and safety equipment inspected every day and replaced depending who your manager is in the office."

Speaking to reporters last week, NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts said that the problem was not widespread, and after hearing about one case of a manager abusing his work time, a memo reminding workers of workplace policies was sent to employees.

"We cannot tolerate one," he said.

The Channel 7 piece featured one worker with his face blurred to protect his identity who spends the majority of his day after clocking in reading in Van Cortlandt Park in The Bronx, while another manages a tavern on authority time.

Mr. Dermody admitted that there might be, as in any city agency, a few people who abused work time. "Not everybody's a bad apple," he said.

Showing only what he called isolated incidents didn't tell the whole story for NYC Transit Maintenance of Way workers, Mr. Dermody said, many of whom work in dark, dingy and dangerous conditions. He added that it was typical for day-shifters to halt work in order not to impede train traffic.

Mr. Dermody believed the piece was an unfair shot at transit workers at a time when fares might go up, and supported many transit advocates' suggestion that the MTA make more administrative cuts before it looks to cut back the workforce and service.

"They're not showing the other parts the guys deal with," he said. "We have a lot of guys working at night. They're giving up their family lives to work at night."

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A letter we published last week from sometimes-columnist Jim Callaghan, suggesting that numerous other parties should have to make sacrifices first if labor unions were expected to re-open their contracts, concluded by identifying him as a staff writer for the United Federation of Teachers newspaper.

That notation did not include a tag line we attach to the end of his columns: that the opinions that were expressed were his own, rather than those of his union. The omission was consistent with our usual style for letters from both union staffers and city employees — we believe it is obvious that they are expressing their own opinions, except in cases where the person in question is the official spokesperson for an agency or a union.

Because a mini-brouhaha subsequently arose about the matter, let us state explicitly that Mr. Callaghan was, in his usual outspoken style, opining solely for himself.