Hey, there! Log in / Register

I said, young man, pick your trash off the ground

M-B-T-A (Don't Make a Mess)

The SEIU held a protest in Downtown Crossing yesterday to protest the T's decision to let janitors go.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Given the state that many trains are in, I'm surprised to read that the T has janitors....

up
Voting closed 0

The poor quality of the work demonstrated by the MBTA's janitorial staff doesn't reflect well on the SEIU.

Can't iRobot or some company in Kendall Square give us an automated solution for cleaning trains and tunnels?

up
Voting closed 0

Well that's the thing. I think unions have a purpose, but the minute they stop focusing on members' quality of work and start focusing more on ensuring those precious 15-minute breaks (and yes, they are precious, but so are clean trains) they seem to lose relevance these days.

up
Voting closed 1

when they fight for employees who have grossly neglected their duties.

up
Voting closed 0

So was I! I am scared to death to see what the T becomes!

up
Voting closed 0

MBTA janitor is not a glamorous job or in its essence, interesting, but it must be done with care. With the union, these guys are able to earn enough to help support a family, to pay rent, buy their own food and clothing, take earned time off and save for retirement.

Their next job could be earning minimum wage without benefits, without healthcare, with less self-sufficiency and more dependence on government programs like SNAP, MassHealth and housing subsidy. And not enough income to save for retirement.

Outsourcing, or privatization, to non union labor lowers the bar. It turns quality jobs into low wage jobs that society pays for. Private interests put the savings in their pockets instead of the pockets of lower middle class employees who live in the community. There are real costs to privatization and they are born by you the taxpayer and the family that lives of the ragged edge of poverty dependent on govt assistance.

up
Voting closed 0

... while wearing a necktie!

up
Voting closed 0

The plan is reported as replacing about 30% of union janitors with outsourced contract ones.

up
Voting closed 0

No, the union janitors are outsourced already. They are not being replaced by anyone under the MBTA's plan.

up
Voting closed 0

Eh the T is by far the cleanest transit system I've been on, so maybe they could spare a few anyway.

This is painful to watch though.

up
Voting closed 0

The DC Metro used to be cleaner (although I haven't been on it in years now). They had a super-strict and strictly-enforced no food or beverages policy (tickets for bottled water!), though, which we do not, and I always assumed that was why there was such a big difference. When I lived there I found it uncivilized not to be able to have a coffee on the subway, but now when I wind up on a bus next to a person shelling and eating pistachios, I remember why we can't have nice things.

up
Voting closed 0

You aren't even allowed to eat or drink on them.

up
Voting closed 0

When visiting on a weekend I discovered the trains on the Red line in D.C. during the early evening ran every 20 minutes. For all the problems of the T at least they tend to run more frequently.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah. They may be cleaner, but they have a number of other drawbacks. I don't know if they still do this, but at rush hours, every other red line train only ran for the middle part of the line - roughly the equivalent of every other train only going from Harvard to Field's Corner or North Quincy - so if you lived at the end of the line, distance-based fare plus peak fare surcharges meant you were paying nearly twice as much for half as much service, which really rankled when you were sweating it out on a platform in the July heat. Don't miss it.

up
Voting closed 0

I've always felt the T stations were clean enough.

Sorry to see the jobs outsourced.

up
Voting closed 0

that 90% of the people in that video have no association with the T, their paid protesters. SEIU is an utter disgrace.

up
Voting closed 0

Yep. That.

99% of corporate lobbyists and legal whores aren't employees of the corporations they lobby and whore for, too.

up
Voting closed 0

Unions are corporations too.

up
Voting closed 1

has an article of incorporation with any state or federal agency. If you want to make up stuff you should become a conservative blogger.

up
Voting closed 0

So their special interest groups, similar to lobbyist.

up
Voting closed 0

They operationally are corporations with members as shareholders. A cartel is a cartel be it labor or business.

up
Voting closed 0

GE is a person.

up
Voting closed 0

According to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. Corporations also people...

up
Voting closed 0

but then wouldn't you expect they'd be able to sing & dance in time with the music.......?

up
Voting closed 0

The MBTA and their bone-headed decisions...The elevator at Chinatown station is a barf bag!

up
Voting closed 1

LOL I know it totally smells like barf. Actually most of them do. That or feces. #MBTA

up
Voting closed 0

The flash mob seemed to take the participants by as much surprise as it did the audience.

up
Voting closed 0

I see the janitor at the NQ stop mopping and sweeping almost every day, so he lost his job :( ?

up
Voting closed 0

to smell stale pee again.

up
Voting closed 0

So, don't worry just yet.

up
Voting closed 0

http://youtu.be/9xAi80ShG0I

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash

: The Coasters - Yakety Yak

up
Voting closed 0

The MFA did the same thing a few years ago. They refused to renew a contract with long time union maintenance employees in favor of out sourcing.

I think this is a trend that the T is simply following. It's not that different from outsourcing manufacturing. It's all about saving money.

But penny saved = (British) pound foolish. Example is Amazon: By catering to the lowest common denominator of lowest price one super retailer has devastated the book retail industry. Same goes for Walmart decimating small town retail districts. By promising the lowest price the majority of consumers allow themselves to become enslaved to a tyranny of lowest price, forgetting that lowest prices equals low wages which equals full time employees still needing government assistance.

up
Voting closed 0

keep dancing further to the left.

up
Voting closed 0