Letters to the Editor
Transit's Defibrillator Shame

To the Editor:

Ari Paul's article, "TWU Still Waiting on Defibrillators" (March 28 issue) is very disheartening. Before I left Transport Workers Union Local 100, the New York City Transit leadership had given its assurances to the union that it would be installing life-saving defibrillators in at least 8-10 locations, including a car equipment location. The timetable was a few months, not years.

These assurances were given in front of skeptical bus depot and car equipment leadership. NYCT officials made it clear that this was a pilot program with defined budgetary support that was set aside for its completion. We received these assurances at our meetings with the NYCT and the contractors who were delivering these life-saving medical devices.

Now to find out that NYCT's new leadership is turning its back on those commitments is not just a disappointment, it is dangerous to our members. The administrative runaround reported in that article seems just another excuse for not spending the money. Inaction by the NYCT is also a violation of the labor contract.

Releasing our members for training is a twisted way that NYCT is playing with the minds of hard-working families and their spouses who are working to move New Yorkers. It looks good, but in reality it is just a cheap way to delude our members and their worried families that their employer actually has their health uppermost in their minds.

Michael Russell's highly personal testimony is all the more revealing since we know for a rank-and-file member to step forward is to expose yourself to future reprimands and possible dismissal. The New York State and City Health Departments should look into this.

In addition, at the same time that TWU Local 100 members are being denied this simple public health protection, the NYCT management headquarters is fully equipped with defibrillators. It is apparent that NYCT is giving its own definition to labor/management cooperation and "shared responsibilities." In its definition, the union cooperates and shares and the company takes. Nothing new there. This just continues the cynical rule that has been going on for decades.

FRANK GOLDSMITH, DrPH, Former Director, Occupational Health TWU, Local 100