T and Local 589 Sign Deal to Move the T Forward

Read all about it!

Seems like a win-win for both sides. Local 589 gets their assurances that it's core jobs won't be getting privatized and the T saves about $81m by forgoing raises this year, switching to an electronic scheduling system, and actually requiring that workers work more than 40 hours a week in order to collect overtime.

Guess this explains all the #ridersfirst ads on the air recently from local 589...

It's a bad deal for the workers.
What do they win? The right to keep their jobs?
The MBTA or any private Operator would have a hard time recruiting 4000 front line workers and Keeping them if they didn't offer decent pay and benefits.

As an example, It's fun and easy to go back and forth on the green line for a week operating. But every day for years and years isn't so easy. Dealing with the weather, disorderly passengers, service disruptions, and equipment problems becomes stressful. Working nights, weekends and holidays takes away something that double time can't give you - quality time with your friends and familty. Ultimately, that Operator and their coworkers are responsible for your life as you ride around the system. Would you want an underpaid person working for a private company (who's primary concern is making a profit) responsible for your kid's (or grandparent's) life?

In the past few years, MBTA 589 workers have seen their medical benefits watered down, guards have been removed from the red and orange lines (and the union got nothing in return), pension benefits have been reduced for new employees and now no incremental pay raise. In effect, it's a pay cut for the hard working Operators and Repair Persons of the MBTA.

If it were me I would vote no and go on strike. Let them try and privatize my job. I suspect it would be a disaster for current and future riders.

People don't realize that the T is insolvent. Not sure how a bankruptcy reorganization for a public agency would work in Massachusetts.

Seems like the deal sets a dual pay rate, where present workers get to keep their salary but new workers get a lower rate. This tells you that the current pay rate is above the market rate. Also present workers will sell out future workers every time if it gets them closer to retirement. Same goes for Purity Supreme full time supermarket workers selling out their part-time colleagues, or the big postal worker's union selling out a small bargaining unit of about 100 nurses.

A strike by public employees is illegal. ParallelPhil is right, however, a strike of more than a couple of days would cause enormous damage to the economy of Boston and Cambridge (and the state's treasury). It would be settled within about 48 hrs, whatever it takes. If this were a private company with the "T"'s balance sheet they would declare Chapter 11 and terminate the pension plans in a heartbeat and take the strike.

Public managers like this kind of a deal because although they are still apparently overpaying compared to the private sector, but the deficit hole stays the same so they can deal with it.

We are at the point we should have been 10 years ago but for Romney and Patrick kicking the can down the road.

BandA wrote:People don't realize that the T is insolvent.

Another needle stuck. Repeating it 8 million times doesn't make it true.

If any public agency were "solvent," it wouldn't be a public agency and market rates would have relevance.

It amazes me how public service is such a difficult concept to grasp.

John_Perkowski wrote:ADMIN NOTE:

Temporarily closed.

Buses? Seriously?

Under moderator review. I try to let forum moderators determine what's on-topic, and what's not. Labor is one of those areas I defer. Sometimes, a good discussion can be had; sometimes not. It's really their preference, since they know their "domain".

This will be allowed as long as the conversation sticks to the politics behind it and not the employee wages and health insurance(ect.). Many employees and management read this forum. This is for railfan discussions not financial discussions.