SFMTA racial equity hearing spotlights disproportionate discipline for Black transit operators and employee accusations of retaliation

The Government Audit & Oversight Committee convened a hearing on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's (SFMTA) implementation of its Racial Equity Action Plan (REAP). Vice Chair Supervisor Connie Chan said the hearing responded to employee emails alleging a toxic workplace and asked SFMTA to present progress and next steps.

Josephine Ion Klayan, identified in the presentation as SFMTA's Racial Equity Officer, described the office she has built, the Phase 1 REAP focus on internal issues (hiring, retention, discipline, separations, and boards/commissions) and a data-driven approach to workforce equity. Klayan summarized a two-year analysis (fiscal 2019-2021) that recoded discipline into safety, performance and conduct and found that safety incidents were the most common driver of discipline.

She reported disproportionate outcomes among Black transit operators: "there was this proportionality among black transit operators" with African American women more likely to be disciplined for attendance-related issues and African American men showing disproportionate outcomes in both safety and attendance-based discipline. Klayan said the office's next steps include continuing workshops, standardizing discipline reporting, building multilayered monitoring and accountability, mandating racial-equity training for managers this year and expanding it to all staff next year, and using the new ombudsperson for confidential triage.

Director Jeff Tumlin briefed the committee, noting the agency's responsibility to ensure race and gender are not obstacles to employment outcomes and supporting the new equity staff. Supervisors pressed for more frequent reporting on disciplinary trends and clearer transparency about decision-making and accountability. Klayan said the office started with a retrospective two-year review to establish consistent coding and plans quarterly reporting with the goal of moving to monthly reporting once staffed and systems are in place.

Public comment featured multiple current and former SFMTA employees and affinity groups. Dante King of the Black Employees Alliance said managers have known of disparate outcomes and described a failed internal reform proposal; other callers (including union representatives and affinity-group leaders) described bullying and retaliation by management, inadequate follow-up to staff complaints, language-access gaps in community outreach, and fears of retaliation for speaking publicly. Several callers urged stronger accountability, manager-level dashboards and faster investigatory responses.

After the public record, Vice Chair Chan moved to continue the item to the call of the chair so SFMTA leadership (including Director Tumlin) could return with additional items requested by the committee: details about data cadence, the referenced discipline-tracking system, examples of implemented reforms and evidence of progress toward reducing disproportionate outcomes. The motion passed on a unanimous roll call.