When dead bodies are retrieved from New York City's subway tracks, they are stored in employee break rooms, says the MTA workers' union.
The alleged practice raises sanitary and mental health concerns. The union is calling for reforms.
"You have pieces, you have blood spatter," Transit Workers Union (TWU) president Derek Echevarria tells Spectrum News 1. "It could be any contamination or disease."
The TWU is calling on the New York City Mayor's Office to improve response times to the scenes of deaths on the subway. While it says the NYPD responds instantly, the medical examiner can take "two hours or more" to get to a scene.
“Mayor de Blasio and his administration have failed to provide enough staffing for the Medical Examiner’s Office to quickly retrieve and remove bodies from the subway after these tragedies,” Enchevarria told AM New York. "It's unacceptable that transit workers have to endure this on the job,"
MTA sources tell Spectrum New 1 that bodies are not stored in break rooms, simply that officers place them in non-public spaces.
Officials say employees are not always warned before walking into an area where a body is being stored.
In 2015, 50 people were killed after being struck by subway trains.
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