A union that represents TTC workers is calling for an “immediate safety audit” of all stations in the wake of a pair of unprovoked attacks on a bus driver over the last month.
The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 says that the driver was taking a break in a restricted area at Eglinton Station on Tuesday when he was “blindsided” by an unidentified assailant, struck twice and sprayed with what is believed to be a homemade pepper spray substance. The union says that the drivers sustained temporary blindness and injuries to his face as a result of the attack.
It is was the second attack on the driver in the last month and the third over the last two years, according to the union. Previously, the union said that the same driver had had a gun pulled on him while on duty and been assaulted with a knife.
“What will it take before the TTC makes worker safety a priority?” ATU Local 113 Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Morton said in a press release issued on Wednesday. “Our members deal with serious and dangerous threats each day, and when it comes to worker safety, the TTC is falling short. Toronto’s transit workers deserve better and the TTC needs to make safety improvements now.”
In its release, ATU Local 113 asked the TTC to immediately conduct safety audits in all public and restricted areas in its stations and “make necessary improvements” to the stations themselves.
The demand comes one month after the union said the hiring of “unqualified contract workers” was to blame for an injury sustained by a bus operator at a garage in North York.
For its part, the TTC called that incident “unfortunate” but rejected the union’s assertion that contract workers were to blame.
