Pittsburgh Regional Transit says it finds no ‘toxic’ workplace

After the Pittsburgh Regional Transit board of directors heard concerns for the second month in a row Friday from fired Black employees, CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman said the agency has found no evidence to support claims of a “toxic” work environment for minorities at the agency.

Chaz Williams, a former PRT bus driver and chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Transit Workers, asked the board to meet with the group to discuss concerns that Black employees receive more suspensions and terminations than white workers, even if they commit the same type of offenses. Williams said the group has 50 to 60 former and current employees who have seen strong bias against Black workers at the agency for more than 10 years.

The group claims there were four to five dozen terminations of Black workers during that time compared to about a dozen white workers.

Following its usual policy, the board didn’t respond to Williams’ comments. After the meeting, Chairwoman Jennifer Liptak declined comment because it is a personnel issue other than to say, “We’ve asked the CEO to monitor the issue.”

Kelleman said she takes the allegations seriously but has found no evidence to support the claims. Terminations and suspensions she has reviewed seem to be supported by evidence and were upheld through arbitration, she said, but the agency is continuing to look beyond that to see if there is “unconscious bias” among supervisors and workers.

“We don’t see data that shows one group is being singled out more often than another,” Kelleman said. “Are we seeing smoke before a fire? No.”

Kelleman said in her many visits to garages and job sites, no one has brought the issue to her attention.

“We spend a lot of time engaging with our employees,” she said. “I am not seeing a toxic environment.”

The agency will continue to review data and encourage employees experiencing workplace problems to come forward, she added.

“I don’t want to negate what people say they are feeling,” Kelleman said.

Williams said it is “past time” to continue airing the group’s concerns, but he wanted to ask for a meeting with the board before the group takes its concerns to the state Human Relations Commission.

“We can sit at the table and discuss this,” he said.

Williams said he didn’t realize the widespread nature of problems at the agency before he was fired after an incident in May 2021. A pedestrian claimed Williams tried to strike him and his family with a bus, but Williams said he didn’t know why the man was chasing his bus until later.

“Once it happened to me, there was an epiphany on my part,” he said. “I looked around at the other people who were terminated or suspended, and they all looked like me.”