The new head of New York City Transit sent an emotional letter addressed to 47,000 subway and bus workers yesterday, calling for a greater emphasis on safety in the wake of two recent track worker deaths and urging a new, more trusting era of labor-management relations. Referring to his 20-year career in the United States Army, the transit president, Howard H. Roberts Jr., recalled the time he served as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, where staying alive was a matter of following safety rules. The letter was distributed to thousands of employees by e-mail and also posted at work sites in the transit system.
See "After Deaths, Transit Chief Reaches Out to the Union", William Neuman, The New York Times, May 2, 2007