Provides benefits to Metro-North employees involved in or who witness a serious injury or fatality of another person in the course of an assigned duty

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic10

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Pete Harckham says this is needed

Unfortunately, through either accidents or suicides, Metro-North engi- neers and conductors are frequently involved in fatal collisions throughout the course of their careers. It is important that these work- ers have the appropriate time to process these intensely traumatic inci- dents- both for their own personal mental health and as a safety measure to ensure that they are emotionally equipped to return to operating trains. For years, Metro-North had a policy of granting three paid days off for engineers and conductors who were involved in the fatality. However, this policy was abruptly changed over a weekend in early 2020. No notice of this change was provided to Metro-North workers or to their union representatives until an engineer was inevitably involved in a fatality. Under the new policy, the engineer in question was told that since his scheduled days off ("rest days") fell within the immediate three day period, Metro-North was not required to pay him for those days, nor were they obligated to provide additional time off after his rest days. The Association of Commuter Rail Employees ("ACRE") aggressively chal- lenged this change, culminating in a meeting with Metro-North's Presi- dent and Senior Vice President of Operations wherein the policy was ultimately reverted back. During the meeting, however, the Senior VP questioned why Metro-North should provide bonus days to a worker that hits a trespasser. Given Metro-North's inconsiderate and inappropriate attitude in addressing these fatalities, combined with their recent history of unilaterally changing the policy- a statutory mandate is necessary. This bill ensures that Metro-North engineers and conductors will be provided a fundamental safety net when they are involved in, or witness firsthand, a traumatic fatality on the job. In doing so, this bill will further reduce the safety risk posed by having an employee who was just involved with a critical incident return to work and perform safety-sen- sitive functions.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.