Photo by Grundlepuck.

Rut roh: according to the Washington Post, some Metrobus drivers might not show up for work tomorrow over concerns that the transit agency is not taking their safety seriously.

The union isn’t explicitly instructing members to not show up for work tomorrow, but it appears that an incident which occurred at a Metro garage this morning might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back:

Drivers at Metro’s Northern Division, which is located at 14th and Buchanan streets NW, said Wednesday morning that superintendents and managers at the garage where roughly 150 buses depart were “ordered to leave” before the drivers had a chance to check safety equipment, according to Gerry Garnett, assistant business agent of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, the union that represents more than 10,000 Metro employees.

Garnett said four to five supervisors at the Northern Division were instructed Wednesday morning to write violations for drivers who refused to leave the lot. The drivers were running late but had not performed required safety checks on equipment, which include radios and security cameras.

Many of the drivers at the division left without having a chance to do the safety checks because “they were afraid they’d be fired or suspended,” Garnett said.

Today, of course, is the second anniversary of a Metrorail crash which killed nine people and injured dozens more — so, obviously, the union is playing the safety card as often as they can. During a town hall meeting on Monday, representatives of ATU Local 689 raised several complaints about driver safety, including issues with inoperable radios and broken surveillance cameras; in February, statistics showed that a third of the aggravated assaults which occurred in the Metro system in 2010 involved bus drivers.