Top CTA Official Resigns Over 'Shocking' Sexually Explicit Emails
By Kate Shepherd in News on Dec 7, 2015 6:10PM
The CTA is under fire for a "workplace culture often blatantly demeaning to women" and a top official just lost his job over some sexually explicit emails, says the Tribune's transportation columnist.
David Kowalski, the CTA's senior safety adviser, and another male employee swapped messages "crudely commenting about a female colleague's appearance," among other disturbing communications.
Kowalski resigned from his job at CTA President Dorval Carter Jr.'s request on Friday. He had worked at the CTA for more than 40 years and was already scheduled to retire Dec. 31.
"I was surprised and certainly disturbed by what I read in the emails," Carter told the Tribune.
Carter, who was not president of the CTA t the time the emails in question were sent, says that the CTA needs a workplace overhaul.
"Clearly that type of behavior isn't something that I believe is appropriate in the workplace, or anywhere else for that matter. I was totally shocked, to be quite honest with you, that Dave Kowalski would be engaged in that kind of behavior," Carter said.
It's against the transit agency's policy to use CTA electronics to transit offensive material to or about others, spokesman Brian Steele told the Tribune.
Sent between 2008 to 2012, the emails contain troubling accounts of high-ranking CTA officials describing female body parts and bragging about drinking and slacking off on the job, according to the Tribune:
•Sexually explicit back-and-forth dialogue between Kowalski and two women, one of whom now says she was coerced and feared retribution.•Brash email exchanges between Kowalski and another high-ranking male employee during CTA meetings that refer to female body parts as "hams" and "walnuts."
•Abundant references to consuming alcohol, even suggesting that some of the drinking occurred on CTA time.
•Braggadocio about using out-of-town trips to transit conventions and other events as opportunities for "slacker time."
The emails were full of offensive quotes about female employees including:
"Tunnel woman is showing you lots of prime ham red,'" Kowalski emailed to a director in the rail maintenance division, under the subject line "Meeting," according to the Tribune.
"Can you have the a/c shut off so she takes her jacket off,'' the now retired director responded.