Commuter rail union says legal loophole leaves operators in danger

Local News

“We carry the same passengers, and in some cases, work on the same platforms as the other MBTA public employees. We should be treated the same.”

After an MBTA conductor was allegedly assaulted and threatened with a handgun last month, the worker’s union is reigniting calls to legislate more protections for MBTA commuter rail employees.

“The whole idea, hopefully, is that, with different penalties, people will think twice about laying a hand on or assaulting any of our members,” said Cole Czub, vice chairman of the Bus and Transit Assault Prevention and Safety Committee of the Sheet Metal, Air, and Rail Transportation Union’s Transportation Division, which is also called SMART-TD.

Two men were arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and firearm charges at the Ashland MBTA Commuter Rail station May 29, a spokesperson for Transit Police said. The investigation is still ongoing.

SMART-TD said one of its member conductors was assaulted and had a loaded handgun aimed at him during the incident.

Ashland police announced the arrest of the the two men, saying they were removed from the train before the incident around 4 p.m. Union members said the incident started after the men refused to pay their fare.

“We have had several incidents where knives were pulled on our members. The gun is definitely a pretty drastic escalation,” Czub said.

Union leadership is calling attention to a legal loophole that puts MBTA workers and employees working on the commuter rail in different legal categories when they are assaulted. In Massachusetts law, the charge of assault and battery on public employees, including MBTA transit workers, carries a stricter sentence than assault and battery. 

However, commuter rail conductors aren’t technically public employees because they’re employed by Keolis, which has operated the MBTA’s 14 commuter rail lines since 2014. A bill in the Massachusetts House seeks to expand the law protecting public employees to apply to all transit workers.

The proposed legislation was referred to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary for a hearing last month, but similar versions of the bill have been stuck in studies and committees in previous sessions.

13 assaults on commuter rail conductors since October, union leader says

While the MBTA bus and subway train operators have additional legal protections, assaults against them and commuter rail employees have been on the rise in recent years, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Assaults on transit workers across the country have tripled since 2008, the MBTA said last year.

“Passengers now are a little emboldened since the pandemic,” Czub said. “It used to be that we’d hear about an event happening maybe once a year. Now it seems like it’s almost every month.”

During the pandemic, sometimes conductors wouldn’t collect fares, and the trains “became a little bit of a haven for people who had nowhere else to go,” Czub said. 

“Those people are still riding, and now they’re being asked to pay and they get a little aggressive,” Czub said.

He said there’s been 13 assaults on commuter rail conductors since October.

Czub also said some of the attacks against union members are considered simple assault, meaning police can’t arrest them unless they observe the incident, leading to drawn out court proceedings for conductors.

“It really comes down to what I think was an oversight when they drafted the law, and it just needs to be tightened up a little bit so that now we’re under that same umbrella,” Czub said. “We carry the same passengers, and in some cases, work on the same platforms as the other MBTA public employees. We should be treated the same.”

Dave Stevenson, SMART-TD’s New England safety and legislative director, said he’s attended court proceedings in Wareham, Attleboro, West Roxbury, and Dorchester with multiple conductors who were allegedly assaulted at work. He said a union member was even kicked down the stairs at South Station.

Keolis, the contractor and employer of the conductors, said they are working with Transit Police on the investigation into the incident at the Ashland MBTA stop. A spokesperson said passing the bill is needed to give their conductors the same legal protections as their counterparts with the MBTA buses and trains.

“Keolis is committed to partnering with union leaders to advocate for this legislation and ensure that our employees are protected from assault,” the Keolis spokesperson said.