MTA workers are upset about subway safety and disrupt morning service

New York City Transit workers, in response to an overnight attack that injured a train conductor, stopped work Thursday morning to file safety complaints, causing serious disruptions to subway service.

The stabbing happened around 3:40 a.m. on a southbound A train in Brooklyn. During the morning rush hour, workers organized the work action at the 207th Street station on the A Line and the 168th Street station on the A and C Lines in Manhattan. The workers refused to perform their assigned duties, leading to the disruptions, according to two transit officials with knowledge of the situation.

Thursday’s attack further fueled long-simmering complaints that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the government agency that runs public transportation, has not done enough to ensure worker safety.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, union leaders said transit workers and union representatives had filed safety forms after the morning attack — a procedure allowed by their contracts — and that trains had been delayed as a result. A major problem was the lack of police presence at the subway station after the Brooklyn attack, they said.

Several transit workers have been attacked on the job in recent weeks, leading union leaders to call for more transit officers to be added to stations. On Valentine’s Day, a station police officer’s eye socket was broken after a man followed her off a platform and punched her. In a separate episode, a conductor was reportedly hit in the face with a tennis ball.

In a news release, Richard Davis, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said workers are very concerned about their safety. “We need better protection now, before we lose one of our own.”

In the attack early Thursday, a conductor, Alton Scott, was attacked while on duty at the Rockaway Avenue subway station on the A line at Fulton Street in Brooklyn, according to a news release from Local 100. Mr. Scott, 59, who worked for 24 years before the authority and was taken to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, where he received 34 stitches.

Demetrius Crichlow, senior vice president of subway operations at the MTA, said transit passengers, including a doctor, had helped Mr. Scott after the attack.

“This is an act of cowardice,” Mr Crichlow said at a press conference outside Brookdale Hospital on Thursday morning. “There is no circumstance that an employee who is just doing his job will have to deal with this,” he added.

Wesley Parnell reporting contributed.