They thought they were out, but the MTA is trying to pull them back in.
Facing a shortage of subway workers that’s crippled service for months, transit officials last week asked recently retired train operators to return to their old jobs.
“New York City Transit has a critical and urgent need for fully trained and qualified train operators,” said a Sept. 21 letter from a Metropolitan Transportation authority human resources officer that was obtained by the Daily News. “If you choose to apply and are accepted, you will be temporarily appointed by NYC Transit for a period not exceeding 90 days and your gross earnings, which are not pensionable, may not exceed $35,000.”
If a former train operator is accepted for the temporary work, they’ll continue to get their retirement health benefits — but won’t qualify for the disciplinary protections guaranteed to permanent workers, the letter states.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the letter was sent to roughly 700 train operators who’ve retired in the last three years.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the MTA has bled nearly 5,000 jobs as workers rushed to retire; the agency had a hiring freeze that lasted until earlier this year. Roughly 1,000 of the lost jobs were in subway service delivery, agency data show.
MTA officials have responded by shortening the required training time for train crews and tried to boost enrollment in training classes.
It wasn’t enough.
The shortage has caused transit supervisors to regularly cancel trains across the city when there are too few crews to run them. A staggering 10.7% of rush hour subway trains were canceled in August, marking the worst monthly performance for the subway since at least 2015, data show.
“We are exhausting every avenue in the quest to quickly increase the number of available train crews,” said MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan.
Officials at Transport Workers Union Local 100 said they’re opposed to the retiree-hiring program, arguing the MTA needs instead to ramp up shiring of new workers.
“The MTA has to sit down at the table with the union and try to iron out a lot of details,” said Local 100 president Tony Utano. “That hasn’t happened… I highly doubt workers who retired before or during the pandemic are going to come back with the pandemic still going on.”
Eric Loegel, vice president of rapid transit operations at Local 100, said MTA disciplinary policies keep many train operators on the sidelines. “I’m willing to come to the table to explore ways of keeping members working in full-duty status,” he said.
The push to re-hire retired train operators comes just before an MTA vaccine mandate kicks in, which may worsen the worker shortage.
A memo sent by the MTA chief safety officer Pat Warren on Friday said starting Oct. 4, all the agency’s workers must submit proof of their COVID-19 vaccination or else submit weekly negative PCR tests in order to work. Warren wrote the MTA has set up 120 workplace testing sites.
Anyone who doesn’t submit proof of vaccination or a weekly negative test will be held out of service until they’ve done so, said Donovan.
Just 58% of NYC Transit’s 50,000 employees have so far submitted confirmation of their vaccination, data from the agency shows.