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TTC report recommends employee drug testing
Blames lack of safety procedures, not drug use, for fatal accident last year; tests conclude driver was under influence when he died
JEFF GRAY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
June 13, 2008 at 5:12 AM EDT
While saying drug and alcohol use on the job among TTC workers is "not rampant," TTC officials said yesterday they didn't know how many transit workers are disciplined each year for being drunk or stoned, even as they begin considering a controversial testing regime for employees.
That idea is among the safety recommendations made in a report released yesterday on the April, 2007, subway crash that killed work-car driver Antonio (Tony) Almeida, whom the report concludes smoked marijuana on his final shift, according to toxicology tests.
While the report blames a lack of safety procedures, and not the drug use, for the accident, it also reveals that Mr. Almeida - a 38-year-old father of two - was fired a year earlier for smoking marijuana, but reinstated after his union took up his case.
The TTC's chief general manager, Gary Webster, said TTC staff had caught Mr. Almeida using marijuana on a break, sitting in his car in a parking lot. He had been returned to work under conditions that he show up "fit for duty." However, yesterday's report says his supervisors were unaware of these conditions.
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The report's findings have added to calls for drug and alcohol testing - vehemently opposed by the TTC's largest union - that came after a TTC bus driver was charged with impaired driving last week.
But Mr. Webster and Adam Giambrone, the city councillor who chairs the TTC, said yesterday the TTC needs to compile its records before it can say how many of its workers have been disciplined for drug or alcohol.
"I really don't want to go there. Not that many, clearly," Mr. Webster said.
Around 4:30 a.m. on April 23, 2007, an 11-person crew removing asbestos from the subway tunnel walls north of Eglinton Station finished and began to head south on a two-car work train.
The front car, a flatbed, was outfitted with eight telescoping metal platforms that allowed workers to reach the tunnel walls. Pushing it from behind was a conventional subway car, driven by Mr. Almeida.
But four of those platforms, the investigation concluded, were not properly stowed. The one directly in front of Mr. Almeida's cab was left fully extended.
It caught the side of the tunnel wall, causing it to fold backward into the subway-car cab where Mr. Almeida was seated, killing him instantly. Two workers were also seriously injured, and others there that night have suffered from post-traumatic stress, Mr. Webster said.
All of the workers have insisted they stowed their platforms properly and that the equipment must have come loose. Police and TTC management rejected this version of events after testing the equipment and recreating the accident, Mr. Webster said.
Telling the surviving crew members this in a tense meeting this week was difficult, he said, as was a recent meeting with Mr. Almeida's widow.
"What we don't want our employees to think, what we don't want Mrs. Almeida to think, is that we're blaming them," Mr. Webster said. "This is not a blame game."
The TTC has taken responsibility for the accident, pleading guilty to a Ministry of Labour charge and paying a $250,000 fine.
Mr. Webster also acknowledged yesterday that the ministry's investigation into the accident revealed that a similar work-car crash had occurred on the Bloor-Danforth line in 2002, but the TTC did not address the problem.
Mr. Webster, who has spurred a re-examination of safety at the TTC, said that in addition to tightening its training and other procedures, the TTC is modifying the work-car so that it will not move unless all of its platforms are stowed.
Bob Kinnear, president of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, called the report a "damning reflection" of the TTC's safety practices, but accused management of trying to shift blame onto the worker who died by highlighting his drug use.
"The TTC is trying to put the onus on a dead man. ... Did they test his supervisor?" Mr. Kinnear said yesterday. "I think it is absolutely disgraceful."
Blames lack of safety procedures, not drug use, for fatal accident last year; tests conclude driver was under influence when he died
JEFF GRAY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
June 13, 2008 at 5:12 AM EDT
While saying drug and alcohol use on the job among TTC workers is "not rampant," TTC officials said yesterday they didn't know how many transit workers are disciplined each year for being drunk or stoned, even as they begin considering a controversial testing regime for employees.
That idea is among the safety recommendations made in a report released yesterday on the April, 2007, subway crash that killed work-car driver Antonio (Tony) Almeida, whom the report concludes smoked marijuana on his final shift, according to toxicology tests.
While the report blames a lack of safety procedures, and not the drug use, for the accident, it also reveals that Mr. Almeida - a 38-year-old father of two - was fired a year earlier for smoking marijuana, but reinstated after his union took up his case.
The TTC's chief general manager, Gary Webster, said TTC staff had caught Mr. Almeida using marijuana on a break, sitting in his car in a parking lot. He had been returned to work under conditions that he show up "fit for duty." However, yesterday's report says his supervisors were unaware of these conditions.
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The report's findings have added to calls for drug and alcohol testing - vehemently opposed by the TTC's largest union - that came after a TTC bus driver was charged with impaired driving last week.
But Mr. Webster and Adam Giambrone, the city councillor who chairs the TTC, said yesterday the TTC needs to compile its records before it can say how many of its workers have been disciplined for drug or alcohol.
"I really don't want to go there. Not that many, clearly," Mr. Webster said.
Around 4:30 a.m. on April 23, 2007, an 11-person crew removing asbestos from the subway tunnel walls north of Eglinton Station finished and began to head south on a two-car work train.
The front car, a flatbed, was outfitted with eight telescoping metal platforms that allowed workers to reach the tunnel walls. Pushing it from behind was a conventional subway car, driven by Mr. Almeida.
But four of those platforms, the investigation concluded, were not properly stowed. The one directly in front of Mr. Almeida's cab was left fully extended.
It caught the side of the tunnel wall, causing it to fold backward into the subway-car cab where Mr. Almeida was seated, killing him instantly. Two workers were also seriously injured, and others there that night have suffered from post-traumatic stress, Mr. Webster said.
All of the workers have insisted they stowed their platforms properly and that the equipment must have come loose. Police and TTC management rejected this version of events after testing the equipment and recreating the accident, Mr. Webster said.
Telling the surviving crew members this in a tense meeting this week was difficult, he said, as was a recent meeting with Mr. Almeida's widow.
"What we don't want our employees to think, what we don't want Mrs. Almeida to think, is that we're blaming them," Mr. Webster said. "This is not a blame game."
The TTC has taken responsibility for the accident, pleading guilty to a Ministry of Labour charge and paying a $250,000 fine.
Mr. Webster also acknowledged yesterday that the ministry's investigation into the accident revealed that a similar work-car crash had occurred on the Bloor-Danforth line in 2002, but the TTC did not address the problem.
Mr. Webster, who has spurred a re-examination of safety at the TTC, said that in addition to tightening its training and other procedures, the TTC is modifying the work-car so that it will not move unless all of its platforms are stowed.
Bob Kinnear, president of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, called the report a "damning reflection" of the TTC's safety practices, but accused management of trying to shift blame onto the worker who died by highlighting his drug use.
"The TTC is trying to put the onus on a dead man. ... Did they test his supervisor?" Mr. Kinnear said yesterday. "I think it is absolutely disgraceful."
