The MTA has filed a lawsuit against City Comptroller Brad Lander, seeking to prevent the payment of higher wages to people who worked under contract cleaning trains at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the spring and summer of 2020, the MTA hired an army of contractors to clean subway cars overnight.
However, Lander’s predecessor, Scott Stringer, claimed that cleaners were being paid less than state law.
Although the cleaners were owed at least $28 an hour, the MTA only paid them $20, despite the risk and lack of health insurance and other benefits.
Additionally, the workers, many of them undocumented Latin American immigrants, claimed that their legal status was used against them when they complained about low wages.
