#MTA Bridges and Tunnels union wants OT to watch 5-minute coronavirus safety videos

The union representing the MTA Bridges and Tunnels lieutenant and sergeants is demanding a half-hour of overtime pay to watch five minutes of coronavirus safety videos.

Christina Lampropoulos, the head of the Superior Officers Benevolent Association, believes the two videos — totaling five minutes and 25 seconds — qualify as staff training, and must be compensated in overtime, according to an email obtained by The Post.

“I just took a call from a very irate Christina Lampropoulos who said that her members need to be paid a half hour of overtime for watching the MTA’s Return to Work video,” Bridges and Tunnels official Sharon Gallo-Kotcher wrote to MTA HQ on Thursday afternoon.

“I told her that this is just a 5 minute video and not training. She said that it is training and that we already lost this issue and that, as the Labor Relations VP, I need to tell the MTA that this issue needs to be bargained with them,” she added.

“I reiterated that this is a 5 minute video that they will view from their desks at work and she reiterated that we need to pay them overtime to look at it.”

The two videos have been distributed to the MTA’s entire 70,000-plus person workforce, and is specifically directed to workers returning from work-from-home on July 6, sources said.

The first clip discusses how workers can protect themselves from COVID-19 while traveling to and arriving at work. The second focuses on COVID-19 protocols at the office itself.

“Always put on a mask when entering a room with someone else, then assess whether 6 feet of separation can be maintained,” the narrator says during the office protocol clip.

More than 66,000 MTA employees received overtime pay in 2019 — yet none of the MTA’s dozens of other labor unions have demanded compensation for watching the coronavirus videos.

“They’re probably trying to use precedent from the sexual harassment training to justify it. They usually pay us an hour of training time for that,” said one labor leader, who noted the MTA’s communications about the videos do not use the words “training” or “mandatory.”

“They probably think it’s a precedent that we always get paid training,” the labor leader said. “It just seemed like info to me.”

MTA Bridges and Tunnels, also known as the Triborough Bridges and Tunnel Authority, spent 9 percent more on overtime last year compared to 2018, according to data analysis by the Empire Central fiscal watchdog — a higher increase than at any other MTA sub-agency.

The TBTA’s binge came as the MTA reduced its overall OT tab by 8 percent, the Empire Center found.

The cash-strapped MTA faces billions in lost fare and tax revenue over the next two years, and has put its $51.5 billion modernization on hold amid the fiscal crisis.

One official said the union’s demands would cost the MTA up to $5,000.

“Even in the best of times, this would be a bizarre request, but given our dire fiscal condition, it’s downright absurd,” the official said.

The union did not return calls to its Long Island office.