To the Editor,
NYC Transit subway train runs continue to be canceled every month due to a shortage of both conductors and engineers. This is primarily due to the devastating impact of COVID-19, combined with the prior short-sited policy of canceling training classes for new employees. It takes three months for conductors and eight months for engineers to be fully trained.
Even after resuming training classes one year ago, NYC Transit is still short hundreds of conductors and engineers. As a result, they will not be fully staffed until some time later in 2022. One wonders how many trains may have to continue to be canceled in coming months, until this shortage of critical employees is finally resolved.
NYC Transit should have the ability to hire part-time employees to deal with peak service requirements. This might have provided a larger pool of employees resulting in far fewer canceled trains. Why not include this in the next round of contract negotiations between management and the unions?
Larry Penner
