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

(New York, NY) – 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.

The full letter is available below and here.

Dear Chair Foye:

Clean, safe, reliable subways are essential to New York City’s long-term recovery. As we work to reopen our economy and more and more New Yorkers turn once again to the subways for their regular commutes, the employees contracted to clean NYCT trains have done invaluable work to restore New Yorkers’ faith and confidence in utilizing public transit safely. As reported by the New York Times, Documented and others, these frontline workers often labor in extraordinarily challenging conditions without sufficient supplies and protective equipment.

As you know, my office enforces Articles Eight and Nine of the New York State Labor Law for New York City public works and building service contracts, which require payment of prevailing wages and supplements to workers employed on these contracts.  On May 18, 2020, I wrote to you concerning the payment of prevailing wages to employees of NYCT contractors that perform the important task of cleaning and disinfecting subway stations and trains. However, it has come to my attention that NYCT is not requiring payment of prevailing wages to employees on contracts for cleaning the interiors of subway trains.

I have determined that Labor Law Article Nine applies to the cleaning of trains as well as subway stations.  Subway trains are occupied by the public in the same way as buildings and cleaning the interiors of subway trains involves the same type of work as cleaning building interiors.  Indeed, the workers that clean the trains do so while the trains are sitting in subway stations.

It is critical to ensure that the contractors providing these cleaning services are paying prevailing wages and benefits to their employees. Nearly a year after these cleanings began and with no indication that they will stop in the near-term future, I am concerned that  these workers are not being paid what they are owed under the law. My office is currently investigating one NYCT contractor for underpayment of prevailing wages on a cleaning contract for subway train interiors. We will continue to monitor the work on these contracts and accept complaints from workers, with an eye to recovering unpaid prevailing wages for these workers retroactively.

Once again, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting tremendous economic strain on New York City’s workforce and vulnerable communities. These workers are risking their own health and that of their families to ensure that New Yorkers – especially our frontline workforce – can use our transit system safely.

If NYCT staff that oversee these cleaning contracts have any questions, please have them contact Constantine Kokkoris, Assistant Comptroller for Labor Law, at (212) 669-2519.  I look forward to working with you and NYCT in ensuring that the workers doing this important work are properly paid.

Sincerely,

Scott M. Stringer
New York City Comptroller

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