MTA Will Pay $500K to NYC Transportation Workers Killed by Coronavirus
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and three unions for bus and subway workers in the New York City area have reached an agreement on COVID-19 family benefits for transportation workers tragically lost in the pandemic.
The benefits include a payment of $500,000 from the MTA to the surviving family of any worker who lost their life as a result of COVID-19, in addition to providing health insurance to the spouse and dependents to the age of 26 of the surviving family for three years.
The agreement between the MTA and the Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU), the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 808 (IBT) will also be extended to all non-represented employees. The agreement is subject to Board ratification on April 22.
The families of members who died while in active service on or after February 1st will be eligible for these benefits. Workers’ union have been advocating for them since late last month, after the first death among union members on March 26.
The MTA said that 59 employees have died of coronavirus so far, and more than 2,200 workers have tested positive for the disease. New York City has a total of 123,146 cases so far and 11,477 deaths.
The press release also noted that the MTA is continuing its comprehensive disinfecting efforts systemwide with trains and buses being disinfected nightly, with the entire fleets for all agencies – more than 8,000 train cars and 5,000 buses – completed every 72 hours or less.
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This is what’s wrong with the modern world….If a person working for a private, non unionized small business dies from Covid 19, he/she gets 0….
Ladies and gents: even though I am truly saddened by loss of lives, it is we, the straphangers, pay for those benefits. Why go to college, why climb the corporate ladder? Just secure a union job and you will be all set…..This is not America I came to 25 years ago…..Reminds me more and more of my former “fatherland”….