NYT: After Deaths, Transit Chief Reaches Out to the Union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/nyregion/03letter.html

By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: May 3, 2007

The new head of New York City Transit sent an emotional letter addressed to 47,000 subway and bus workers yesterday, calling for a greater emphasis on safety in the wake of two recent track worker deaths and urging a new, more trusting era of labor-management relations.

Referring to his 20-year career in the United States Army, the transit president, Howard H. Roberts Jr., recalled the time he served as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, where staying alive was a matter of following safety rules.

“The only difference between being a paratrooper and working many jobs at NYC Transit is that jumping out of planes was a lot safer,” Mr. Roberts said in the letter.

Mr. Roberts, who started the job in mid-April, said he was taking the deaths last month of the two track workers, Daniel Boggs and Marvin Franklin, in accidents five days apart, “personally” and said that he felt “responsible for everything that happens or does not happen at NYC Transit.”

The letter was distributed to thousands of employees by e-mail and also posted at work sites in the transit system.

After the second death, last Sunday, Mr. Roberts ordered an immediate stop to all work on tracks and tunnels so employees could receive additional training on safety procedures.

FULL story at link.