New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has come to an agreement with transit worker unions to grant death benefits to the families of workers that died from coronavirus.

The MTA signed an agreement on Tuesday with the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Transport Workers Union of America that pledges $500,000 to the spouse, beneficiary or estate of those lost to Covid-19.

The payment will be made in a lump sum. Workers need to have been in active service on or after 1 February.

Death benefits will also be extended to members of four TWU Locals: Local 100, Local 106, Local 2001 and Local 2055.

“We can’t bring back our heroic co-workers but we can make sure their families are taken care of,” Local 100 President Tony Utano said. “We will continue to fight in Albany for additional benefits to help the families left behind and to further honour our lost heroes’ great sacrifice to this city and state.”

“New York wouldn’t have a fighting chance against this virus if transit workers weren’t getting the blue collar heroes of this pandemic – nurses, paramedics, food service workers – to the front lines of the battle all across the metropolitan region,” TWU International President John Samuelsen added. “This Covid-19 death benefit is a recognition of the incredible contributions and sacrifices our workforce has made.”

A debate continues to rage as to whether the MTA could have done more to protect workers. Some 2,269 MTA workers have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and 59 have tragically died.

Transit workers are at a particularly high risk of infection as they come into contact with large numbers of people and often have breathing difficulties caused by dust and diesel fumes in subway tunnels or from operating vehicles in heavy traffic.

When the outbreak began the MTA looked to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for guidance, which in the early stages of the outbreak did not recommend that healthy people wore face masks.

Since then the CDC guidance has changed and the MTA has distributed 500,000 face masks, including 300,000 N95 masks, asking workers to make them last a week.

The MTA also announced on Tuesday that trains, buses and ferries will give two horn blasts at 3pm on Thursday in honour of transportation workers across the region.