Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Signs Legislation Expanding Protections for Transit Workers Against Assault

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation (S.9468/ A.10491) to protect roughly 11,000 more transit workers against assault and harassment. The bill will expand current law that charges individuals who attack or harass transit workers with second degree assault. It will extend criminal charges to individuals who assault station customer assistants, ticket or revenue collectors, maintenance workers, repairers, cleaners, and their supervisors, who are not protected by existing law. The Governor signed the bill alongside State Senator Leroy Comrie, Assemblymember Vivian Cook, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, and Mark Henry, President, ATU local 1056.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. Please take your seats. Wonderful to be back here in Jamaica. Senator Comrie, am I in Jamaica every single day of the week, it seems? Vivian Cook. Yes, it is wonderful to be here and I want to, first of all, acknowledge the leaders who have joined me here today for this major announcement. That shows where our priorities are.

And I want to thank Janno Lieber, our CEO of the MTA for just weathering all the storms. And I mean hurricanes. I really mean storms. And so you've been an amazing partner, so glad to have you leading the lifeblood of our city, our MTA. So Janno Lieber, let's give him a round of applause.

Also, you have amazing leaders here. My partners in state government. Senator Leroy Comrie, I want to thank you for all that you've done, fighting for the working men and women to protect them. And I want to thank you for your leadership across the state, Senator Leroy Comrie.

Vivian Cook and I go way back. She has been out there, the voice of this community. And when she speaks up in Albany people pay attention because you don't wanna get down the wrong side of Vivian Cook. She's tough, she's caring and she's a great partner of mine. Let's give it up for Assemblymember Vivian Cook.

And our leaders of our various unions that are stepping up here to protect. Mark Henry, who'll be hearing from in a few moments. The President of ATU 1056, Mark Henry.

I know Tony Utano could not be here today. Tony, it better be a darn good excuse, man. Someone get that back to Tony and tell him I said that. TWU Local 100.

Anthony Simon, I stand up Anthony. A great leader of SMART General Chairman.

Ed Valente, the Association of Commuter Rail Employees. Thank you, Ed, for being here and all you do. Thank you, Ed.

Mike Carrube, Subway Surface Supervisors Association, as well. And we have a number of other unions represented. DC 37, and TWI and lots more, lots more. We're all here today for one purpose.

I, first of all, say it is so great to be at this Depot, the Jamaica Bus Depot. Does anybody think this is a shiny example of what a bus depot should look like? No, no stop clapping. My setup is like - no, this is not what a bus depot should look like. Okay. Does anybody think we can do a lot better than this?

Yeah, all right. How about $500 million to make it look a lot better? We are transforming the experience. We are transforming the experience here. And I want to thank JannoLieber and everyone else who said this community, our workers deserve better. Four-year process, we're going to be the hub of electric charging for buses.

Did I get that right, Janno Lieber? He's making sure I get this right. Construction starting next year. Let's get that done. It'll hold over 300 buses and it'll have a very modernized bus fleet. I want to thank everyone involved in this as well.

But here we're talking about subway safety. Our passengers, of course. Our workers, not protected the way they should be by our laws until today. But when you talk about overall safety, I don't know if anybody's watching the news, but just last week the Supreme Court and their campaign of destroying our country, it seems. Let me talk about what they did to New York.

We have had a law on the books in this state for over 100 years. This is not a new idea. 100 years to say that there are special requirements for someone to be able to carry, concealed on their body, a weapon. And they decided that the Governor of New York State does not have the power to do that. Does anybody agree with that one? No. So I'm here to say, this is not the old gun-toting wild west. This is the gun regulating safer east, especially here in New York State. So we're going to prevent that from happening. So what do I have to do? I had to call an extraordinary session. That's actually what they call it. It is extraordinary, but it's called an extraordinary session.

Meaning that instead of waiting till our legislators who work so hard up just until a couple of weeks ago in Albany, that they're going to come back, not in January, but they're coming back literally on Thursday. And I thank all my partners and I see Assemblyman Clyde Vanel sitting over there. I want to thank him for his work.

I want to thank Alicia Hydeman for her leadership and all of our other leaders as well who'll be recognized by the Lieutenant Governor in a few minutes.

They're coming back because we have to start taking our safety seriously, once again, despite what the Supreme Court does and we're going to do that. But also let's talk about the subways, let's talk about our buses. We know our transit system makes everything work. If that is not running physically, but also in a place where people feel safe to go to and our workers feel comfortable showing up on the job. And that is so important. We have to keep it all moving. These are the people who take people at the crack of dawn to their jobs in hospitals and in hotels and office buildings. They take kids to school on a regular basis. They take people out for their entertainment, the chance to connect with each other and they bring them all home at the end of the day safely.

During the pandemic, and I hate to bring back a bad memory, but these are the workers who did exactly what I said while there was a global pandemic going on. So I'm going to continue to stand up and say, we protect you. I want to thank Roberta Reardon, our Commissioner of Labor, for what she did during that pandemic as well, to make sure all of our workers were safe. Let's give her a round of applause as well.

But now, I've got some good news. Pandemic, nobody's on the subway, except those who really have to get to their essential jobs, and you got them there, but now they're starting to come back, more people are using the subway. That's good news, right, Janno? People coming back. That's a very good sign, but these same workers who are willing to put their lives on the line to get us when we need to go during a pandemic, they need to be protected as well because they've always been there for us, and we will be there for them.

I'm going to continue supporting their safety on the job, continue to work with Mayor Adams to make sure we have safety; increased NYPD presence on the subways, platforms, dealing with the homelessness crisis, continuing our strong partnership to keep New Yorkers safe.

But what we also have subway workers, physically assaulted, verbally abused. Being spit at while they're at their jobs. It's reprehensible and it has to end, and we're going to do everything we can to protect them from these verbal and physical assaults. Last year, there were 118 assaults, physical assaults, on our transit workers up 23% from the year before 2,519 cases of harassment up from the previous year as well. No one should be subjected to this in the workplace, especially those who are working for the people of New York.

So, we're taking a stand. Our current laws make these crimes a second-degree felony. That sounds nice. But then you have to ask, are all workers covered by this? That covers certain workers - conductors, bus operators, station cleaners - we need to protect those as well. And they've left out many frontline transit workers. Today we're righting that wrong.

I'm proud to say that the bill we're about to sign in a few moments will now cover over 11,000 more transit workers who are left out of these protections up until today. The station customer assistance, the maintenance workers, the repair workers, and the supervisors of all these workers. And I want to thank the two champions of the workers who stood up and made this happen. And that is Senator Leroy Comrie and Assemblymember Vivian Cook. Thank you. Thank you once again for what you've done, because they're easy targets, they're easy targets and that means we have to protect them. This will also be a deterrent to those who will now think twice about causing harm to these essential critical individuals.

I thank everyone involved in this. I thank our partners in the legislature, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. I thank Speaker Carl Heastie, because no one, no one should ever have to fear for their life or safety while they're making sure that we all get where we're going safely as well. That's why it's important.

This is a continuation of our effort to make all New Yorkers safe. And I thank all of you for being such an important part of what we're doing here today.