Comptroller Stringer to MTA: As Overnight Subway Cleaning Continues, Workers Must Be Paid Prevailing Wages

 

Comptroller informs MTA of his determination that Labor Law Article Nine applies to the cleaning of trains as well as subway stations

 New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer sent a letter to Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Chairman & CEO Patrick Foye urging the MTA to ensure that the contractors providing subway cleaning services are paying prevailing wages and benefits to their employees. Highlighting concerns that these workers are not being paid what they are owed under the law, Comptroller Stringer is already investigating one contractor for underpayment of prevailing wages on a cleaning contract for subway train interiors. Comptroller Stringer informed the MTA of his determination that Labor Law Article Nine applies to the cleaning of trains as well as subway stations.

“For the past year, the employees tasked with disinfecting the subway have risked their lives keeping our massive transit system clean,” said Comptroller Stringer. “These essential workers have faced extraordinarily challenging conditions, often without sufficient supplies and protective equipment. It is critical and common sense that we pay subway cleaners every cent of wages that they are owed for their invaluable work. There will be no economic recovery for New York without a clean, safe, reliable subway system – and the MTA must not shortchange the very workers who are crucial to ensuring that millions of New Yorkers and our frontline workforce can use our transit system safely.”

In May 2020, Comptroller Stringer sent a letter to the MTA concerning the payment of prevailing wages to employees of NYCT contractors that perform the important task of cleaning and disinfecting subway stations and trains.