"Rubber Room" is Gone for RTO and MABSTOA

RTO Officers (l-r) Raul Lugo, VP Eric Loegel, and Zach Arcidiacono mark the end of the "rubber room."

FEBRUARY 6, 2020 -- The "pilot program" in RTO and MABSTOA, which consigned union members to a "rubber room" at PS 248 in Brooklyn, officially ended today at a meeting attended by RTO officers at 2 Broadway, and led by Administrative Vice President Nelson Rivera. Officially called the "differential assessment program," it was unilaterally initiated by Transit in 2016. The program required injured workers to report for two weeks of "light duty" work before they could go out on workers' compensation. If the worker did not attend, Transit would withhold contractual "differential pay."