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MBTA workers picket money room in protest against privatization; arrests made

Members of The Boston Carmen's Union, local 589, set up a picket line outside the T money room in Charlestown today to protest the T's impending decision to hand over money handling to Brink's.

Carl Stevens reports some union officials were arrested when they refused to stop blocking armored cars and money-room workers from leaving the facility.

"We cannot stand by while they privatize our public transportation system and turn the keys over to a private company seeking to profit from our riders' fares and the public’s tax dollars," union President James O’Brien said in a statement.

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Comments

We cannot stand by while they stop paying us $60/hour to wave a flashlight.

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I first read this as "MBTA workers POCKET money" which I thought was kind of a stupid way to protest.

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An analysis of MBTA payroll data by The Republican / MassLive.com identified 59 employees who earned at least $100,000 above their base salary in 2015. These included technicians, repair people, forepersons, police officers, machinists, dispatchers, motorpersons, engineers, and others. In many cases, the overtime boosted annual salaries of around $100,000 to more than $200,000.
Privatization may make the MBTA more efficient!

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I am pretty much anti-union as it gets...but how do you know those workers don't deserve those salaries?

We've all worked in places with awesome employees who do the work of 3 people, have a positive attitude and create a great working culture. If those are these people, then good for them for earning 200K. The MBTA is a critical service for our economy so we should have high wages for talented people.

On the flip side, if ANY worker is an angry, lazy and miserable...they should be fired immediately.

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You had me until your last paragraph. I'm pro-union as far as protecting the rights of employees and their fight to ensure a good wage. I've worked with many employees and for many supervisors who were angry, lazy, and miserable. Should those supervisors be fired as well?

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Should those supervisors be fired as well?

Hell Fn YES.

In fact, those supervisors are worse than the employees. They are in a position of leadership which means they must go before anyone else.

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The MBTA is in such a good state, we should probably keep all of the underperforming employees. Especially the supervisors. Those are the guys who really know how to make doing nothing look like a tough job.

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How do we know those workers don't deserve those salaries? Well, for one thing people earning 50 to 100% above the established salary is indicative of gross mismanagement - if dozens of employees have to work extensive
OT for sustained and recurring periods of time, it is indicative of a supervisor or manager not monitoring and correcting the source of what creates the OT.

If there is too much work to be accomplished in normal schedule work hours, attempting to mitigate that problem, by doubling OT payroll costs is fiscally irresponsible. It also strongly points to a flawed payroll budget process.

Payroll budgets should reflect the mission of the organization with a contingency component built to accommodate
unique or unanticipated events or circumstances. Once the unique demand for labor becomes the norm, it is cheaper to hire additional employees than pay 1.5 times the standard rate. Agency heads that do not understand this are in the wrong jobs.

It is management's role to determine workers productivity - if groups of people are not meeting reasonable job performance expectations (resulting in others having to work OT) - managers have an inherent responsibility to correct the problems. In the alternative, after a period of time, if work loads have increased resulting in excessive OT, management needs to make the case (based on measurable data) that there is an ongoing shortfall of available labor to complete the work. Increasing payroll costs without a corresponding productivity improvement is negligent.

Your assertion: "We've all worked in places with awesome employees who do the work of 3 people, have a positive attitude and create a great working culture" is absurd and bereft of any factual support If someone is doing the work of 3 people it means management has not properly staffed their function or 3 employees are not working at proper proficiency level.

Putting all of the above aside, the T is funded by taxpayers - it is not a stand alone business - they have a responsibility to use our taxes to run their operations in a cost-effective and fiscally responsible fashion. We should pay people competitively so as to attract or retain employees who are able and willing to do the job. It is not the public's concern or responsibility to ensure that "talent" people achieve their "self-actualization."

As for the T being "a critical service for our economy" - in theory, that would seem accurate but in practice our political leaders have and continue to fail us. We have governor who did a lot of huffing and puffing in the beginning but not much since about the Baker is about one incident away from being exposed for not knowing what is going on in his own administration.

We have a Major who thinks he is run a frat house instead of one of the larger cities in the United States. His urban priorities are childish and embarrassing. He is now preoccupied with being re-elected (thus his marketing campaign showcasing his attendance at rather low level community events). Iinstead of taking a leadership role in addressing problems of the T, he tweets and texts us about the next "fun" event in the city. His focus is on bringing the Olympics to Boston, car racing in the Seaport district, and beer gardens to City Hall Plaza. tells us everything about where his head is. Remember the city workers clearing the parade route for the Super Bowl parade…meanwhile our kids were fired to walk in the streets to get to school, while whole swatches of neighbor steets and sidewalks remain touched.

Your comments about $200 K city workers may make you feel like an egalitarian but have little or no utility of the reality of an agency completely out-of-control.

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... shouldn't be an automatic. Case in point right here.

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If management could schedule the employees properly, they could cut down on the overtime costs. Inept management is the problem, not the union. Who is overseeing all this overtime? Should the workers pass on it because they're worried about the budget instead of making a better life for their families?

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How many of the 59 100k+ workers are in the money room. Many were mbta police, are you saying that police, mbta and other, should have their unions busted and only hire non union police in MA. It would certainly save a lot of money.

Conservatives who rail against unions always seem fine with the unions that vote for them, namely police and fire. Gov Scott Walker busted all the unions there, but exempted police and fire.

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n/t

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After watching the morning news with union workers getting arrested and loaded onto a prisoner truck I noticed that they were placed in a prisoner truck with no seat belts.
After the tragic death of Freddie Gray incident in Baltimore I thought all citizens placed under arrest were supposed to be secured with seat belts?

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I don't know the details on that, but it sounds like it would be a Maryland law or even Baltimore or BPD (?) regulation -- not applying jere.

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They use keys? I thought that was part of the issue :0

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Needs to end. It is toxic. Like MBTA employees don’t profit at the taxpayer’s expense with their bloated salaries, budget busting pensions, and work ethic while the public resists fare raises and maintenance suffers due to pension and fare squeeze.

Public-private partnerhsip is the future, the sooner we embrace it the better we’ll all be.

Public should be the watchdog, private should be keeping the labor competitive and responsible for performance. All we have now is a series of interests groups as politically connected and rent seeking as any other, if not more so. While they can go awry as well, companies are far more responsive and generally better at actually running things than political groups.

Additionally, the public feels good about getting mad at them when they misbehave and politicians actually go after them for it (especially here). The same cannot be said for the picketers disrupting everyone who depends on the system to function.

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The politicians that allegedly go after the employees are usually the worst offenders.

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Public-private partnerhsip is the future, the sooner we embrace it the better we’ll all be.

I'm not a knee-jerk union supporter but what in the world makes you think the private sector won't rip off the MBTA just as much as the union?

The private sector doesn't have the public's best interests at heart -- they care about their shareholders. Keolis is an example of a "public-private partnership" and few would consider the service that company provides to be worthy the billion dollar contact. (Oh, and there was only two bidders for the contract. So much for competition.)

The Commonwealth Connector is another well known example of a private company screwing over the state big-time. The state's bidding and oversight of private companies is a joke.

Unions have plenty of problems but the private sector can be just as bad. Only with the private sector you have even greater imbalances between the compensation of the top management those at the bottom who do most of the work.

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The main difference, to me at least, is who foots the bill. In this case, us tax payers. Tax revenue is a continual, seemingly unlimited purse of money. The MBTA (or any public sector) will likely be funded regardless of performance. To me that creates an inherent lack of accountability. What is the motivation to increase performance, efficiency, cost savings for the MBTA? None. Because at the end of the day, they still collect their six-figure incomes. Further, union employees are incredibly difficult to be fired for poor performance; examples of this are abundant.

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If you know anyone that works for the government, especially the feds, there is no connection between the money they get and it's source - taxpayers.

Someone close vowed to never work in a union shop, but now he does for the govt. He cannot believe the waste and accountability. He was basically told to spend as much as he can because if he doesn't that means the budget gets cut. He HAS to spend even when he doesn't want to. He has to discard perfectly good materials. And yes, the classic; he was told he gets the job done too timely (I am not kidding).

I'm friends with someone who has always worked for the feds. It's "Free money" thinking and when you point out it's actually tax payer monies, you can see the light bulb go off in their heads. They never thought of it that way.

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The issues with Fed spending is a direct result of dysfunctional, year to year budgeting and higher level idiocy that goes up to Congress.

Say your division repairs vehicles for your department, and this year you're given a budget of 100k. But it's a great year - mild weather so fewer accidents, less projects out in the suburbs so the vehicles don't get used as much, etc. So you only use 80k.

Well, next year you'll only GET 80k. And next year is shit - a whole bunch of the cars fail for various reasons, weather, overuse, getting old, etc. You don't get to go back and say, well, hey, the budget ended up more this year for x reason, we need more money. The budget was already written - and barely passed by a dysfunctional concress - so you're fucked.

It's a built in incentive towards waste to account for variances in budget years. MOST federal employees understand this. But what are they supposed to do about it??

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The tax payer is footing the bill irrespective of who does the work.

Look at some of the thousands of private contracts doled out in MA. Many are issued with little to no competition to companies that have gamed the system such that they are the only ones who meet the requirements of the bids. Many of these contracts are long term. Even when the work is completed in a substandard manor, often the same companies are given future work again and again. If they are blacklisted, the executives will simply reincorporate under a new name. There is little oversight and it's tough for governmental departments to cancel a contract once issued.

Again, the Unions are not without fault. It needs to be easier for the goverment to fire Union employees. But you are living in a fantasy world if you somehow think "going private" will magically improve service or lower costs. If anything else it will only lead to more corruption as private companies aren't subject to FOI requests.

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MBTA management has always treated its workers like crap. They have screwed that agency up and tried to blame the Union for years. They tried to privatize it all before and it was proven then that it would cost more. The Comm Ave line tracks and traffic crossings were repaired and replaced by the union workers under budget and ahead of schedule thanks to the Pacheco Law that allowed the union to submit bids on the jobs. T management tried to prohibit the union from bidding on it and it cost us even more money in legal fees. I hope the guys who got arrested have their time in to retire because the T will move to fire them.

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There is a good chance the transit workers have Federal transit labor law on their side:

https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/compltransit.htm

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Meanwhile at Sullivan Station across the street, there are ~30 minute delays with horribly packed trains and riders late to work. Just another morning on our broken and corrupt public transportation system.

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They say they still haven't found the $2.7 million they 'lost' in the Prince St robbery in 1950.

I'm sure the CEO of Wells Fargo will be needing a job, they could just give it to him.

sheesh.

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it's irrelevant.

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A morning presser with Brian Shortsleeve revealed the wonderful talking point they developed...
"Even Bank of America doesn't run their own cash counting machines..they outsource..." He referred to everyone's favorite Bank to despise twice. Pro Tip: comparing your business practices to a Bank that invests in Mountain top removal, jacks credit card rates without warning and generally engages(-ed) in predatory mortgage lending/shitty bank behavior is not good politics.

He was also called out on the the oft quoted 72 staff positions in the money room, which is what is budgeted but the actual seats filled was something like 40-45, so the savings are not what they are presenting. He answered that with "the problems of the money room are legendary..." -- clue phone - "legends" can be substituted with "tall tales" or "myths." Just come out and say you're union-busting. Better than half the state will still give you a handjob for doing that and you don't have to insult our intelligence with accounting slight of hands & bullshit arguments.

Some crappy sound at the beginning, but as they say "it gets better":
CLICKHERESPUNKY!

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Trying to inject a little humor doesn't work around here sometimes. Let me be more clear.

Unions yay. Privatization bah.

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...I meant that post itself - it got fouled up and I had to post it below. Sorry, that was indeed vague. Pay attention to the privatization of our transit system because they're trying their best to kill transit and this is how it starts.

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