Bus Driver In ICU; Had Few Protections

A shuttle driver for Propark Mobility, who up until two weeks ago earned $14 an hour driving hospital employees between Yale New Haven Hospital’s campuses, is now in bed at one of those campuses struggling to breathe with a bad case of pneumonia caused by Covid-19, while her employer has stopped paying her.

Nearby, in the intensive care unit, her husband is on life support. Up until last week, he cleaned buses for CTtransit at its garage in Hamden. Then, at the end of the week, he was the first CTtransit worker to test positive for the virus.

On Tuesday, another maintenance operator who works at CTtransit’s Hartford garage also tested positive.

The Propark employee, who lives in Hamden and asked that her name not be published, said she first got sick on March 17.

“It just hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said.

Two days later, on March 19, she went to the emergency room because her condition was getting worse. The doctors sent her home and told her to self-quarantine, and did not give her a test.

She did not get better. When her husband began to feel short of breath on March 26, she decided to call an ambulance.

Both were admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital that day, and tested for Covid-19. Both tests came back positive.

The employee said she now has a bad case of pneumonia, and it is getting worse every day.

The Propark employee said her employer did nothing to change its procedures and did not provide any protective equipment for its employees before she got sick — no masks, no gloves. She said she brought her own Lysol and bleach wipes to keep her shuttle sanitized.

She said she would have stayed home from work if she could have. She has an immune disorder and severe asthma, which she said Propark knows. Her husband has a bad heart condition, which she said his employer also knows. But had either one of them stayed home from work as preventative measures, they would have forfeited the paychecks that allow them to pay their bills and put food on the table.

“When they were saying stay home to save a life, they should have let us stay home to save a life,” she said, speaking from the hospital. ​“I’m dealing with people every day that come to the hospital. I think that Propark should have took more seriously protecting their employees. ​‘Cause we got me and my husband now fighting for our lives.”

“I Risk My Life Too”

Dennis Safford, a spokesperson for Propark, said the company provides paid sick leave in accordance with Connecticut state law. Employees earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours they work, up to a total of 40 hours of paid sick leave — or one work week — per year. Unused paid sick leave can be transferred from one year to the next.

“In the event that employees are subject to long absences, Propark ensures that those team members are aware of their paid time off balances, and we work together with them to simplify the process of utilizing that accrued paid time off,” Safford wrote in an email to the Independent.

Those five days of annual sick leave no longer provide pay for the hospitalized Propark employee, who works just over a 40-hour work week, she said. She has been out of work since March 17. That means she has missed twice the number of days for which she is guaranteed sick-leave pay, and will likely have to miss many more. She said she also cannot file for unemployment benefits because she has not been laid off.

Safford said Propark offers short-term disability benefits. That may now be her only option.

The employee said she thinks she got the virus from her work because she comes into close contact with doctors and nurses who ride her shuttle between the hospital’s campuses. She did also attend a crowded national religious conference event the Sunday before she fell ill at Trinity Temple Church, where another attendee later developed symptoms, and could have contracted it there. She contracted symptoms only two days after the event, which is the very lowest end of the incubation-period range for the virus.

“I’m dealing with it firsthand too,” she said of her exposure to the virus at work. ​“People are overlooking us CTtransit drivers and shuttle drivers. We got more contact than most.”

Unlike CTtransit buses, the shuttles she drives have only one door, located at the front where the driver sits. CTtransit has stopped allowing most riders to enter and exit through the front door, in order to protect the drivers. Propark can’t do that.

The employee said that when she got sick, the company had made no changes that she knew of to protect its drivers.

“Fourteen dollars an hour, and you don’t care,” the employee said. ​“I risk my life too.”

Safford said that on March 11, the company created a ​“Coronavirus Information Portal” with information about how to stay safe during the pandemic. He said all staff were made aware of it. He said that at the beginning of March, the company ​“instituted a robust virus protection protocol, as a part of our Operational Best practices, based on World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and State Department of Health guidelines.”

When asked what specific measures had been adopted as a part of that protocol, he wrote that ​“Propark reviewed and implemented CDC and OSHA recommendations for cleanliness and disinfection, personal hygiene, respiratory hygiene, social distancing and more,” but did not give any more specific details.

The company has not provided personal protective equipment like masks and gloves to its employees, he wrote. He said it has ​“deployed cleaning equipment to locations including surface disinfectant and virucidal grade wipes and towelettes.”

Those precautions may not have been enough to stop one employee from falling ill, however, and they may continue to fail, especially as more and more doctors and nurses who ride the shuttles come into contact with the virus.

Thomas Wilkinson, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 371, which represents Propark drivers in New Haven, said the union is trying to find ways of protecting workers.

“We’re trying to get a meeting with Propark to see how we’re going to handle this situation because this may not be an isolated case going forward,” he said. One of the union’s representatives went to New Haven on Tuesday to talk to workers, from six feet away, to figure out what they need, Wilkinson said.

The Propark employee said she wants to get the word out that the virus is serious, and that a lot of people who are risking their lives to transport essential workers go unappreciated.

“There’s a lot of unsung heroes, especially my co-workers who are driving shuttles,” she said. 

Bus Maintenance Workers Sick; Company Turns Down Extra Sick Leave

When the husband of the Propark worker tested positive for Covid-19 late last week after being admitted to the ICU, he was the first CTtransit worker to test positive for the novel coronavirus. On Tuesday, a worker in Hartford tested positive as well. Both work at maintenance garages, where they clean buses.

The worker at the Hamden garage was admitted to the ICU on March 26. He did not work the previous week, because he was on vacation, his wife said.

On March 19, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that passengers on CTtransit buses would board through the rear door, and that the seats right behind the drivers would be cordoned off. In addition, extra buses are being deployed to busy routes to allow for greater social distancing, said DOT spokesperson Kevin Nursick.

While those changes have gone part of the way to meeting the requests of union leaders, they have not gone all the way.

Ralph Buccitti, business agent and financial secretary for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 281, which represents New Haven-area CTtransit workers, said the union tried to get CTtransit to provide extra paid sick leave.

Buccitti and other union leaders proposed a one-time arrangement with CTtransit that would permit employees to take paid pandemic leave of 15 workdays, with the option to extend for an additional three months at a lower rate if need be. Employees could take paid leave if they themselves get sick, and could remain on leave until they get better. They could also take a paid leave if they had been exposed to the virus, are caring for someone who has the virus, or to take care of children for whom they cannot find childcare while schools are closed.

CTtransit did not agree to provide a special paid pandemic leave. It sent back a memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreeing to let employees take the leaves requested by the union, but without special pay. If the employee is sick, has been exposed, or is taking care of a family member with the virus, the MOU stated that the employee could take sick leave in accordance with the policy in the union’s contract. They could use vacation or personal time to take care of their kids.

CTtransit workers are allowed ten days of paid sick leave each year. Sick leave pay only kicks in after two days of unpaid leave, however, unless the employee ends up being sick for ten or more consecutive days, or if the employee is hospitalized for at least 24 hours.

Buccitti said the union also bought gloves and masks for its members because CTtransit did not.

Nursick said CTtransit will maintain all of its operations as much as possible.

“The bus transit system is still providing a critical need in the state of Connecticut for riders who have essential needs,” he told the Independent. He said the state is doing ​“everything reasonable and feasible” to protect CTtransit workers. ​“But we’re working in uncharted territory.”