Straphangers on a pair of subway lines were stranded during the Thursday morning rush after a conductor’s slashing at a Brooklyn station upended service for two-plus hours — with MTA officials blaming the delays on union anger over workplace safety.
Officials with Transport Workers Union Local 100, however, denied that the service disruption on the A and C lines was a wildcat strike stemming from the attack on veteran conductor Alton Scott at Rockaway Avenue at around 3:40 a.m.
“There was no slowdown,” Richie Davis, president of TWU Local 100 said. “We are allowed to initiate safety on behalf of our members.”
The president of New York City Transit blasted the union for “putting on some kind of work-stoppage charade” in which train crews were advised not to staff their scheduled trains.
“Work stoppages don’t solve a damn thing,” said Richard Davey, head of the MTA division that operates the subways and buses. “We’re looking forward to continuing to see what we can to make safety improvements for our folks.”
An MTA official with knowledge of the situation told THE CITY that representatives of union management appeared at the Manhattan terminals on the A and C lines — the 207th and 168th Street stations — and advised train crews not to staff their scheduled trains.
“This job action continued for a period of time, inconveniencing a large number of riders who were forced to switch to alternate lines,” the official said.
The TWU held a press conference in Brooklyn, just hours after the attack and subsequent delays, to call for more security in the transit system.
“We cannot do our jobs under these conditions,” Davis said. “It’s not correct, it’s not right.”
The early-morning assault on the 59-year-old transit worker was the latest in a string of attacks that have the union pushing the MTA to post its own police officers on platforms near where conductors stick their heads out from open train windows.
Increasing Violence
Angry union leaders said the slashing is a sign of the dangers faced by train crew members, who, according to MTA data, were victims of 755 reported instances of harassment or assault in 2023. The union said assaults in the subway were up nearly 60% last year.
“It’s appalling that this attack happened — 4 a.m. in the morning to just get slashed across your neck for no good reason,” said John Chiarello, safety director for Local 100. “We’re living in the Wild West right now, this is the Wild West.”
The union said Scott received 34 stitches to a gaping wound at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center.
“Thankfully, several customers came to his aid, one of which was a doctor,” said New York City Transit Head of Subways Demetrius Crichlow. “On the conductor’s account, if it wasn’t for the doctor, he’s not sure if he would have made it.”
One of the safety measures being tested by the MTA is placing rubber barriers over the “No Standing” zones that were installed last summer at the 125th Street station along the Lexington Avenue line after an increase in conductors being pelted with spit.
The agency also is aiming to have on-board cameras installed across the entire subway fleet by the end of this year.
“In the last couple of years, we’ve put up over 10,000 cameras in the subway stations, never done before,” Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and CEO said Thursday. “We’re now putting cameras inside the conductor’s cars.”
Subway rider Tyler McIntosh told THE CITY that he and other straphangers stuck in the subway were the victims of worker unrest over safety.
“Yes, they need to be protected,” he said. “But when you’re messing with the commute of innocents, it makes things tougher.”
McIntosh said he took an Uber from the Clinton-Washington C train stop in Brooklyn to the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center hub because he had somewhere to be.
“One train came in and it was super packed and there wasn’t another projected to come, so they were saying to take another train if you could,” he said. “But we had a doctor’s appointment we couldn’t be late to.”
Another straphanger, Charlene Slaughter, said her ride from the Nostrand Avenue stop in Bedford-Stuyvesant to Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan turned into a longer-than-expected ordeal.
“It was crazy,” she said. “What usually takes me 20 minutes took me an hour.”