BART officials are reviewing employee attendance records after more than a third of station agents, train operators and transportation supervisors did not show up to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The absences left stations unstaffed, forced police to handle closing duties and highlighted an ongoing problem.

Station agents are the most visible personnel in the metro rail system, serving as managers who provide information for riders, find and report broken equipment and evacuate people during an emergency. Their presence helps curb fare evasion, though they don’t cite cheats.

Basic annoyances such as stuck elevators or people smoking on the platform go unaddressed when these employees don’t come to work. When no agent or supervisor is present to open or close a station, the responsibility falls on police officers.

“This is of great concern to me, given the need for increased attention to public safety and customer service at BART and our ongoing shortage of police personnel,” said Board Director Debora Allen, whose district spreads through central Contra Costa County.

She and some of BART’s managers are urging a crackdown on absenteeism, which is more apparent around Christmas, when many employees would prefer to be celebrating or staying home with their families, or on New Year’s Day when BART needs extra bodies to extend service until 3 a.m., and the gaps stand out.

Michael Short

The issue has long been contentious at BART, but Keith Garcia, president of the agency’s police union, said he has accepted that officers sometimes have to pick up station agents’ work.

Garcia pointed to the disparity between officers, who do not qualify for overtime pay if they call in sick during a regular work week, and agents, who can call in sick once during the work week and still be eligible for overtime on days off.

“I can tell you that officers have strict rules about attendance, and they are enforced,” he said. “There’s no incentive to call in sick.”

The current rules for station agents are more stringent than they were six years ago, said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost. A quirk in a previous union contract allowed agents to take up to three sick days a week and then pocket hefty overtime pay by filling in during the weekend. Since the first overtime shift paid 150 percent of normal wages and the second shift paid double, employees could earn more if they worked Thursday through Sunday than if they worked Monday through Friday.

“That was egregious,” Trost said, adding that the agency reined in that practice during labor negotiations in 2013. Even so, some officials complain that the current rules still leave room for abuse. Managers are currently reviewing station-agent attendance records, Allen said, to assess the severity of the problem.

Absences spiked on Christmas Eve, when 37 percent of the operational staff who were scheduled to work said they were unable to come in. As a result, BART had to fill 406 hours and leave five stations without agents when the system closed at 1 a.m. Christmas Day.

Forty-three percent of train drivers, agents and supervisors who were assigned to work on Christmas didn’t show up for one reason or another. The situation improved on Dec. 26, when 12 percent of agents were absent.

“This has been a bit of a holiday tradition,” said board President Bevan Dufty, adding that the numbers “are concerning.”

Still, he praised BART’s assistant general manager of operations, Tamar Allen, for her handling of the situation. She spent Christmas Day visiting stations and handing out candy to people who worked, he said.

“That’s a good approach for our frontline employees who deal with fare evasion and homelessness, and who I think often feel alone,” Dufty added.

On New Year’s morning, police had to close stations in San Bruno, Colma, Daly City, 24th Street Mission, and 16th Street Mission, Trost said. Managers closed Lafayette, Concord and North Concord stations, and transportation supervisors closed stations in Fremont and Union City. The agents at those stations had signed up for shifts that ended at 1:30 a.m., an hour and a half before BART closed.

Gena Alexander, president of the station agents’ union, said its members have many reasons to take a few extra days off over the holidays — a time when stress piles on, homelessness wells up and BART passengers seem angrier.

“Sometimes you can only be cursed at or beat on so much before you need a personal health day,” Alexander said.

Pressure on station agents has increased, she said, because of BART’s shortage of police officers.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @rachelswan