Their employers should pay them more or buy them tickets. They've been pushing, instead, for a subsidy [1]. But at the end of the day, that's still using lower-income New Yorkers' wages to subsidize a system which principally (though not exclusively) benefits higher-income New Yorkers.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/nyregion/train-to-jfk-sco...