File this under “Wow, you mean there are two sides to a story when public sector workers are involved!?”
TV 7’s Victoria Block filed this story on Thursday night with new video of the confrontation between a female MBTA worker and a male passenger:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/arti…
Just a day after 7NEWS showed a videotaped fight between an MBTA customer service agent and a passenger, the agent’s union representative showed 7NEWS a different version of the surveillance footage.
“You can see his phone is out and he’s going right at her,” said Lawrence Kelly of Boston Carmen’s Union.
The representative said it showed the customer going after the T employee aggressively. He added that it was her third encounter with him that day.
“He was uttering vulgarities and screaming at her about her getting him lost and she had nothing else to do but fear for herself and get some distance,” said Kelly.
Wait, you mean just showing the video of a confrontation instead of the full video doesn’t tell the whole story? Who knew?
From the Boston Carmen’s union statement:
Video released by the Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589 shows a disgruntled commuter rail passenger targeting a MBTA worker prior to a confrontation at the Back Bay Train station. The passenger told the MBTA and media outlets that he took out a cellphone after the worker refused to provide him with information but the video clearly shows the disgruntled passenger walking through the train station and toward the worker with his cellphone already out and pointed at the employee.
“This man backed a female employee into a corner and, according to her statement, hit her in the face with his cellphone during a confrontation he initiated,” explained Boston Carmen’s Union Representative Larry Kelly. “She was trapped in a corner of the station with her back literally ‘against the wall’ and took action to put distance between her and an aggressive male customer. She feared for her safety”.
And
The expanded video shows what happened prior to the physical confrontation between the T worker and a passenger who admitted he had been drinking prior to the fight. The Boston Carmen’s Union also revealed that the same passenger had initiated an earlier confrontation directing vulgar language toward and sticking his finger in the face of the female MBTA worker.
‘This is an exemplary employee with three years on the job and no customer complaints in her file,” said Local 589 Vice President John Lee. “This male passenger targeted a female worker not once but twice. If he had taken the same actions against a female passenger at the Back Bay station there is a good possibility he would have been facing assault charges but because it is a woman MBTA worker then she must be at fault. That is disgraceful logic.”
So a male passenger twice goes after a female employee, once verbally and then a second time with physical contact (according to her statement released by the Union in the TV 7 story)but she is at fault.
Thanks TV 7 and Vicki Block for giving both sides of the story.
between the first time there was a confrontation and the time the video was shot, did she report the incident? If not, why not? If yes, why didn’t the MBTA make sure that there were MBTA police — or at least another agent — with her the rest of the day at the very least?
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p>She’s an MBTA service agent, not a cop. She behaved poorly, but given the circumstance, I’m not sure any of us would have behaved any differently.
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p>Of course, the media whipped up the first half of the story, because being first is somehow more important than getting the whole story. I’m glad they came up with the second half later, but jeez… I find it hard to believe she’d be fired had it not made the news, which means MBTA management overreacted to C(their)A.
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p>Ugh.
This is a leadership opportunity for Democratic officials who say they care about unions. I hope they take it.
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p>And beyond unions — T riders. This was at Back Bay? One of the major hubs in the both rail systems, both the regular T and the commuter rail.
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