![]() ![]() Lester said she was disappointed with the response she received from dispatchers. “They didn’t put themselves in the place where the worker was,” Thorne told THE CITY. Richard Thorne, the union chairman at the Flatbush Depot, said he and Lester were hung up on during a later call to the bus command center that got heated. It’s not like that at all for these operators.” “The has certain policies on the books, but they don’t seem to adhere to their own policies.” Hung Up OnĪ transit source said there have been frequent issues with bus operators from the Flatbush Depot calling for personal breaks while on duty and that supervisors are “fed up.”īut JP Patafio, a TWU Local 100 vice president for Brooklyn bus drivers, noted: “When you’re working at a desk, you can get up and go to the bathroom. “These women are supposed to have comforts and they don’t give it to them when they need it,” Brown said. ![]() She said she has received multiple complaints from bus operators who have endured similar ordeals. Overall, 18% of the MTA’s workforce is made up of women, but in the Transit Authority, which includes subway and bus employees, that figure rises to 19%, according to the most recent diversity report from September.ĭeborah Brown, a representative of the union’s Working Women’s Committee, said the episode highlights the difficulties female transit workers confront while on duty. “Supervisors need to be trained, or retrained, to learn how to treat women on the job with respect, decency and fairness.” “There is a culture and meanness in the supervisory level that the MTA should address head on,” said Tony Utano, president of TWU Local 100. ![]() The union also wants Lester to receive an apology. In the wake of the incident, Transport Workers Union Local 100 is pushing for dispatchers at the MTA’s bus control center to undergo training for such situations and others facing female employees, who account for 19% of New York City Transit’s more than 50,000 workers, according to a September report. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible. “Contrary to these claims and as noted in the recording of the conversation between the employee and the command center, this employee was offered the opportunity to take a personal break to address this issue, and she declined,” said Abbey Collins, an MTA spokesperson. The MTA disputed Lester’s account, saying efforts were made to accommodate her and that she could not be allowed to drive the bus back to the depot because of the safety issue she had reported. “I could not go anywhere and it was upsetting and confusing.” “I told her my menstrual is coming down, and she said, ‘Operator, you called with a safety defect and you have to wait,” Lester, 31, told THE CITY. Two calls to the command center later, Lester said, she followed up to report she was bleeding - but was told by a dispatcher, also a woman, to stay with the bus. Kimberly Lester said she let all passengers off a B44 in Brooklyn after reporting to a bus command center that it was “jerking” because of brake issues around 5:30 p.m. An MTA bus driver contends she was subjected to a “lack of empathy” from supervisors when she got her period on the job while being told to wait for a repair crew - and now her union wants more training for dispatchers. ![]()
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