Yesterday it was reported that 51 NYC Transit bus drivers took an average 64 paid days off after being spat on by irate passengers. Some people, including members of the MTA board, thought that amount of time off was a tad excessive, but today the bus drivers and their union are pushing back.
Bus driver Oneisha Portlette-Shade says she was "subjected to total humiliation" after a rider spit on her. "The first time she spat on the side of my face," Portlette-Shade tells CBS2. "The second time, she spat in my eye. It went in my eye. It's in my bloodstream." When a bus driver reports a spitting incident, an agency team responds to the scene with a cleanup kit. Portlette-Shade was tested for infection and underwent psychiatric counseling, and after 64 days she was finally ready to get behind the wheel again!
Last year, there were 153 reported assaults on bus drivers, included 51 so-called "spit assaults." But almost no arrests have been reported for spitting on a driver, because a police officer "must witness the spat upon to give a summons," according to John Smith, who oversees bus operations for New York City Transit. Now the union is concerned that the MTA will no longer include spit attacks under the umbrella of assault. "If we were police officers, that certainly wouldn't be a problem," says Transport Workers Union Local 100 president John Samuelsen. "If you spit in a cop's face, you're gonna get locked up. But for some reason the MTA board thinks if you spit in a transit worker's face that's not an assault."
And it looks like the spray's going to get worse before it gets better. The MTA reports that spitting assaults are on the rise, with more than 80 drivers reported being spat upon in the last year. And with bus service getting worse as dozens of local and express bus lines are eliminated this summer, the spit's really going to hit the fan.
