December 4, 2025—After years of tireless work led by SMART-TD, private transit workers in Massachusetts were granted the same protection from violent assaults as their public counterparts when Governor Maura Healey signed the MBTA Employee Assault Bill (H. 4645) into law.
Keolis, a private contractor within the state, employs over 500 SMART-TD members as conductors, engineers, and onboard crews. The new law imposes a penalty of up to 120 days in jail and a maximum $5,000 fine for an assault on a transit employee. The law also adds “bodily fluids” to the definition of an assault, which imposes a strong disincentive for passengers assaulting operators with their spit or urine.
“I’m grateful to all of our brothers and sisters who never stopped showing up and sent a message to our lawmakers that it’s time to get this done,” said SMART-TD’s New England Safety & Legislative Director Dave Stevenson. “This victory belongs to the men and women who keep Boston and the Commonwealth moving!”
Mass. Latest in SMART-TD Project to Protect Workers Nationwide
As transit workers across the country continue to face the daily threat of violent assaults, this legislation represents an important step forward in the fight to ensure that the punishment for attacking these frontline employees literally fits the crime.
Yesterday’s bill signing marks the fourth state where SMART-TD has passed transit safety legislation this year. Members in Maryland, Colorado, and California successfully guided transit safety bills to passage in their respective statehouses.
If SMART-TD’s interim Bus and Transit Assault Prevention and Safety (BTAPS) Committee Chairperson Cole Czub has anything to say about it, Massachusetts won’t be the last.
“Safety on the job is and will always be our union’s top priority,” explained Czub. “As I’ve said before, we want to put together one bill that we can push forward to all the states as we’re going along, trying to get more states to pass, and hopefully a federal bill that will protect our members.”
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