Big Apple commuters experienced some bus delays Thursday morning because transit workers refused to clean and disinfect buses over allegations that a union leader falsified safety forms.
MTA spokeswoman Abbey Collins called the act by employees at the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot in Brooklyn a “systematic effort to disrupt service and not sanitize buses for customers.”
She said managers scrambled to redirect resources to disinfect buses — and 75 percent of the bus fleet made it out of the depot by 5 a.m.
“The delays were expected to be widespread,” Collins said. “However, as managers continued to redirect resources that were reporting for the morning shift onto disinfecting, the remaining buses were able to be done in time to minimize the impacts of this job action.”
Overall, the MTA said a dozen buses were over eight minutes late and delays were as much as 12 minutes.
The pushback was in response to a “pre-disciplinary suspension of an employee for falsifying a work order with safety sensitive defects,” a transit source said.
The worker — who serves as the depot’s assistant shop steward, but was not identified by name — was punished for allegedly falsifying documents saying the safety repairs were complete when they actually were never done.
A spokesman for TWU Local 100 declined to comment. But JP Patafio, who serves as the TWU’s assistant shop steward at the depot, denied that anyone had falsified documents and accused supervisors of unfairly targeting the worker.
“They’re accusing this guy of falsifying information, that’s not true,” Patafio told The Post. “What they’re doing is they’re calling a pony a racehorse. They might not be happy with the job he did, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do the job.”
Patafio said the action was not organized or sanctioned by union leadership, but union members refused to work out of frustration that the shop steward was picked on after a series of minor labor “scuffles” at the depot.
“Whatever happened, happened on its own. The members are mad. In my opinion, they have a right to be,” he said.
“We’re concerned that they’re targeting the union because of the work we did protecting our members.”
In the spring and summer, transit workers clashed with MTA brass over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with one union official saying the agency failed to keep workers safe.
