Reported by Teaganne Finn for NBC News.
The main federal transportation safety agency still has not enforced provisions in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law that would protect workers as assaults on transit continue to trend up, a group of transit unions said Wednesday.
“Our members include bus and rail transit operators, station agents, car cleaners, mechanics, and other frontline workers, all of whom are at risk of assault and worse each day they arrive at work,” the labor unions said in a letter to the Federal Transit Administration, or FTA, part of the Transportation Department.
The co-signers include the Amalgamated Transit Union, which is the country’s largest transit union, the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department and the Transport Workers Union.
“President Biden committed to protecting these workers and that promise was enshrined into law as part of the BIL,” meaning the bipartisan infrastructure law, the unions said. Biden signed the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law in November.
Assaults on transit drivers, which have long been a concern, escalated during the coronavirus pandemic. The unions representing front-line transit employees have responded through legislative measures, including the infrastructure law.
Read more here.