Luis Feliz Leon at In These Times reports hundreds of Immigrant Subway Cleaners will get their big payday after a $3 million settlement was secured by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Contractors received a windfall of $371 million during the Pandemic but subjected their Workers to poor treatment on the job, retaliation and open sexual harassment. Several Workers, as well as other advocates for safe workplaces, shared in interviews that cleaners often received substandard cleaning equipment. Some say they weren’t given respirators, only regular masks. And they weren’t provided with uniforms and sometimes were working in empty trains in which they could encounter a homeless person in crisis, also struggling to survive. About 450 contracted Subway Cleaners will share in a more than $3 million settlement recouped by City Comptroller Brad Lander. “Without these cleaners, sanitizing and keeping our train system from piling up with debris, New York City would have had a much harder time getting moving again five years ago,” Lander said. They should have been paid New York City’s Prevailing Wage, but when the City contracted with LN Pro Services and Fleetwash to clean the subways, it didn’t require them to do so over the objections of then-Comptroller Scott Stringer.

To Read This Labor News Story In Its Entirety, Go To: Immigrant Subway Cleaners in New York Win Millions - In These Times