They cleaned subways during COVID-19 pandemic

Boston Globe

2 days ago

Now, Baez and more than 450 other subway cleaners will split $3 million in back pay, after a multiyear investigation by the city comptroller found that they were grossly underpaid.
The workers, who were employed by two private cleaning companies, earned around 25 percent less than they were owed, said Brad Lander, the city comptroller. His office sets the prevailing wage, or the typical rate, for certain types of public work.
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The cleaners made $16 to $18 an hour on average in the first years of the pandemic, without supplemental benefits, when $20 to $21 an hour was standard, Lander said. Minimum wage at the time was $15 an hour.
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Lander's office sued the cleaning companies, LN Pro Services and Fleetwash, last year for failing to meet the standard. On Tuesday, he announced settlements that could net the workers an average of more than $6,600 in back pay, depending on their length of service, with some cleaners expected to receive more than $20,000.
'These 452 workers risked their health and safety and their lives to clean subway cars, to give New Yorkers confidence that they could ride them in our darkest hour,' Lander said. 'They deserve to be protected and not cheated.'
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The bulk of the money will be paid by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the subway and hired the cleaning companies, the comptroller's office said.
John McCarthy, the chief of policy and external relations at the MTA, said the transit authority did not acknowledge any intentional wrongdoing by the contractors but would not further discuss the settlements.
During the pandemic's darkest days, the cleaners were classified as essential workers, or those whose jobs were critical for the functioning of society, including medical workers, grocery store clerks, and laborers who kept infrastructure such as the subway up and running.
As many other New Yorkers safely worked from home — and as some left New York City entirely — these essential workers toiled in dangerous conditions.
The settlements were reached in late July, after the comptroller's office argued that the contracted cleaners should have been paid at the same scale as cleaning staff assigned to similar public service projects.
The cleaning companies signed contracts with the MTA in 2020, when Andrew Cuomo, then the governor, directed the transit agency to disinfect subway cars at a number of train station terminals overnight. It was one of the few times in the famously 24-hour transit service's history that the subway system closed for several hours a day.
But some of the contractors said they were paid as little as half as much as MTA employees who did the same work before the pandemic, and often without access to health insurance, at a time when the virus was surging.
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The comptroller's office directed the MTA to pay the workers more at the time, but the transit agency, which was controlled by Cuomo, argued that the contracts fell outside the scope of work that required prevailing wages.
James Parrott, a labor expert and a senior adviser at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, said the settlements were a long time coming and that the transit agency's delay reflects poorly on Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary for mayor in June and is now running as an independent candidate in the general election.
'It's indicative of a lack of sufficient regard that Cuomo and the MTA leadership under his administration had for workers' rights across the board,' Parrott said.
During a mayoral debate in June, Cuomo and Lander, who also ran in the primary and finished in third place behind Cuomo, briefly clashed over the case.
Lander said Cuomo had 'cheated' the subway cleaners, but Cuomo replied that the specifics of their employment and compensation had been determined by the MTA.
On Monday, Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said that as governor, Cuomo had been committed to ensuring that people who worked for the state were paid the prevailing wage.
'No one fought harder to pass and uphold prevailing wage laws than Andrew Cuomo,' Azzopardi said. 'If they were doing work for the MTA, workers have to be paid prevailing wage and must be paid every penny they are owed.'
For Baez, who stopped cleaning subways after her contract was not renewed, the settlements bring some closure.
Baez, who lives in Queens and is originally from the Dominican Republic, said she had paired her shifts as a subway cleaner with a job as a home attendant to make ends meet.
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While working as a cleaner, she was also dealing with cervical cancer, and the fear of catching COVID-19 was constant, she said. Baez contracted the virus early in the pandemic and missed a month of work.
The workers will receive their share of the settlement funds by the end of November, said Chloe Chik, a spokesperson for the comptroller.
Although she does not know how much money she will receive, Baez welcomed the news.
'Whatever it is,' she said, 'we deserve it.'
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