Cuomo and MTA tap low-wage, uninsured workers to scrub subway for coronavirus (illegals?)

NY Daily News ^ | 5/18/20 | Clayton Guse

[Libloather]

Low-wage, uninsured workers hired by private contractors are at the vanguard of the MTA’s nightly subway scrubdown.

Since May 6, when the system began to close from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each night, outside cleaners have set up around-the-clock shops in at least 14 end-of-line stations, quickly mopping and wiping down the interiors of trains before they’re sent back out for service.

Many of the workers are in their early 20s, and many are immigrants who do not speak English and are not eligible for federal assistance.

Private subway cleaners across the city last week said they were not offered health insurance, despite the dicey job of cleaning trains during a pandemic that’s already killed more than 20,000 New Yorkers and at least 118 Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees.

At the Eighth Ave. terminal on the L line, workers hired by the company FleetWash to clean subway cars make $20 an hour, and can score some overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week.

“Everybody’s already out of work," said Jahmil Jarvis, 29, a cleaner at the station who started working for the company three months ago and recently shifted to cleaning the subway. “This is a paycheck every week.”

[Libloather]

Doing the job New Yorkers won't do.

[Texas Eagle]

The NYDN is kvetching about a bunch of young people who are not all that susceptible to a serious case of covid being put in harm's way, but aren't the least bit perturbed that thousands of old folks were shipped off to nursing homes to die.

Wasn't it just a few short weeks ago that Benito Coomo asked how many of our grandparents lives we were willing to sacrifice in order to re-open the economy?

I guess if you ask how many Coomo is willing to sacrifice in order to keep it closed, the answer is at least 5,000.

[DUMBGRUNT]

But even though they make much less, the private workers tend to do a more thorough job of scrubbing the trains — in part because they have no union to cause a fuss if they’re not protected.

Good help is hard to find.

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

The only way that place can ever be cleaned is with a fire hose and several tanker trucks of Q-San (a heavy duty commercial sanitizer that is basically straight lye and is used in the grocery and food service industries.)