pandemic had exacerbated recertification challenges, but it remained unclear Sunday how one of the nation’s largest transit agencies lost track of the issue.
Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said Metro’s operations management team does track certifications but issued pandemic-related waivers in 2020 because of the inability to provide adequate social distancing for training classes and because trainees had travel concerns.The issuance of waivers over coronavirus concerns should have ended in 2020, Ly said, and “there were no checks and balances in place to ensure waivers did not extend beyond a reasonable time frame, typically 30 days.
The Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, the regulatory agency charged with overseeing Metrorail safety, first identified the lapses in a recent review, which prompted Metro Chief Safety Officer Theresa M. Impastato to review all operators’ certifications.The commission identified that Metrorail was not meeting its operational refresher training and recertification requirements for an audit of rail operations that was released last month, according to commission spokesman Max Smith.
The 72 train operators being immediately removed from service for recertification are the operators who have been working without recertification the longest — or since at least May 2021. Recertification is earned after classroom training sessions and supervised testing in rail yards and on the mainline, Metro said in a statement.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689: Do your members have no sense of professional responsibility? How do so many members of your union knowingly show up for work when their safety certification has expired? wmata has tons of flaws, but your union in unsafe as well.
Apparently they skipped the required equity and diversity training to be able to properly run a train. SMDH
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