MTA chairman: 23, including four LIRR workers, test positive for virus
Nearly two dozen Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees have tested positive for the coronavirus, including four who work for the Long Island Rail Road, the MTA’s chairman said Thursday.
Five days after the MTA confirmed the first coronavirus case among its workforce — an LIRR sheet metal worker — the authority’s chairman, Patrick Foye, said Thursday the number has climbed to 23. Nineteen of those work in the New York City Transit bus and subway system, while the remainder work at the LIRR. Foye said the infected employees are in quarantine, or receiving appropriate care.
“As we have said, this is not unexpected as testing continues to ramp up, which will help contain the spread of the virus,” Foye said. “We expect this number will only continue to increase.”
Foye said the MTA is working with public health officials to identify colleagues, who will be sent to self-isolation and tested. The agency also will “immediately and aggressively” disinfect workplaces used by workers who have tested positive.
The MTA also will keep up its enhanced disinfecting efforts of its fleet and its stations. Those efforts were on display at the Hicksville LIRR station Thursday, where railroad “car appearance maintainers” — dressed head-to-toe in protective gear — walked through a train using a fogger that dispensed disinfecting solution, while a station cleaner wiped down ticket vending machines, handrails, door handles, benches and other high-traffic areas with disinfecting wipes.
The MTA has taken other measures to protect the spread of the virus among employees, including by suspending use of the finger scanners on recently installed biometric time clocks that aimed to prevent overtime fraud among workers.
After months of infighting between LIRR management and labor leaders that was made worse by the overtime fraud allegations, railroad union leaders and LIRR managers presented a unified front Thursday. Anthony Simon — head of the railroad’s biggest union — said the partnership between the two sides “has never been as good as it is today.”
A Long Island Rail Road employee disinfects a train car with an eco-friendly cleaner while at the Hicksville LIRR station Thursday. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
“We always rise to the occasion . . . I understand we all have families, but we’re going to come into work and we’re going to deliver service,” said Simon, general chairman of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation workers. “Everything else is on hold. This is priority number one.”
Not on hold, however, is a slate of LIRR infrastructure maintenance and improvement projects, which railroad president Phillip Eng said are going forward as planned, despite concerns over the spread of the virus.
“They’re essential to running service beyond today,” Eng said. “All of that ties to reliable, sage service. And that is critical, whether we’re running today during this crisis, or running our regular service.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
