Filed July 14 in Manhattan Supreme Court, the 17-page suit turns on whether MTA Bus can send a worker's disciplinary record to its medical office — and arrives two months into an expired contract fight covering nearly 40,000 workers.

MTA Bus Company filed a 17-page suit in Manhattan Supreme Court on July 14, asking a judge to permanently stay arbitration of a TWU Local 100 grievance — a legal move that Local 100 President John Chiarello says was designed to sidestep the process the union earned under its contract.

The case turns on what goes in the medical file. The MTA suspended a bus operator after their arrest on charges related to "threats of violence," according to the filing, and after a female coworker provided a handwritten statement accusing the operator of making physical threats against her. The criminal charges were later resolved. MTA and TWU then agreed the operator needed medical clearance to return to work, and MTA Bus's Occupational Health Services ordered a psychological evaluation.

That is where the union drew the line. TWU filed a grievance arguing the MTA overstepped by routing the operator's disciplinary paperwork to the Medical Assessment Center rather than keeping it in the Office of Labor Relations. "The proper place to handle disciplinary paperwork is the Office of Labor Relations, not a medical facility," Chiarello said in a statement to amNewYork. "We were ready to proceed to arbitration as planned, but MTA Bus pulled an end run around the process and filed for a stay."

The MTA's suit argues the inverse: state law requires it to determine the physical and mental fitness of its employees, and the union "has no right to interfere with medical decisions" about whether a worker can perform the job. "The TWU's position is not merely unsupported but seeks to intrude upon core managerial and statutory functions that cannot be bargained away or subjected to arbitral review," the filing reads. MTA spokesperson Michael Cortez declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The suit lands as TWU Local 100's contract — covering nearly 40,000 bus and subway workers — has been expired since May, with negotiations the union describes as a "war" and the MTA calls routine. TWU says the agency is offering raises below the rate of inflation while seeking concessions on health insurance costs, emergency-room copays, and seniority rights for route and schedule selection after extended absences. Union members have picketed Gov. Kathy Hochul at multiple public events over the past several weeks.

The grievance-and-lawsuit sequence carries its own signal: rather than let an arbitrator decide whether disciplinary records can flow to a medical office, MTA Bus moved to shut down that question in state court before it reached a hearing.