MN fires conductor class\cheating scandal

Here is a brief quote from the article and the link to it.

"NEW YORK – The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has fired a whole class of new conductors after allegations someone got a hold of a safety test and passed it around."

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2014/07 ... /11991029/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Affirmative Action at work.

Hmmm, the **entire** class fired... that has no chance of becoming a potential ****storm.... /sarcasm

(not saying such a storm is, or isn't, warranted, just ... that it is inevitable)

Wonder how many ACTUALLY cheated, and how many had no knowledge of this going on - and what will happen with them... I mean, if this action was temporary, pending investigation, that'd be one thing, but if I were working my butt off and got lumped in with someone who was cheating, and disciplined without any chance to say "woah there, hold on,", I'd be rightly pissed, but then again, not gonna assume anything factually either way until I hear more.

The article I read said 9 got canned and 3 were "reassigned".

I would guess the 3 reassigned might be ones who weren't really involved?

my guess 9 were hired of the street, the other 3 had flow back rights, to their old craft, but that's just my $0.02

It's worth more than $0.02 -- the article says they were established employees who sought promotion to conductor, so that seems to be what happened.

So the nine that were fired were new hires who were in training? Do they know all nine actually saw the copied test? Because it doesn't sound to me like they do. (Btw the news article was updated at 7:55 PM.)

MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the investigation is intended to determine who was involved in the cheating.

Maybe the headline is misleading. The MTA says the class was disbanded. Maybe if any of the guys are cleared they can be reinstated and attend a future class.

I hope this will end MN's practice of hiring conductors off the street with no prior railroad experience. They should only promote from within.

Can they do that, do they have enough applicants?

Tommy Meehan wrote:Can they do that, do they have enough applicants?

For every assistant conductor job MN advertises, they get dozens of responses. Being an assistant conductor, conductor or engineer is where the big money is.

Clean Cab wrote:I hope this will end MN's practice of hiring conductors off the street with no prior railroad experience. They should only promote from within.

I disagree with that, there are and have been plenty of good railroaders that were hired off the street with no experience. There are other ways to end cheating, you can't consider all applicants off the street bad because of this bunch especially when there are people that have railroad experience that cheat. I came on off the street with no experience, what about vets and other people that have no railroad experience but do have legitimate work experience?

Clean Cab wrote:I hope this will end MN's practice of hiring conductors off the street with no prior railroad experience. They should only promote from within.

I don't see how the facts known to date state that at all, given that the existing employees were also disciplined. Were the probationers not fired, is it not possible this incident would have sunk without trace, with the internal hires simply "failed" and told to return to prior trades?

EDIT: Does this prove the opposite? Of course it doesn't. But here it is anyway.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/a ... 595616.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another engineer in training was dismissed this past winter when he was caught masturbating on a sleeping female passenger. He had started out as a coach cleaner, and been transferred up to the engineer training program about a year earlier. At the time, then-Metro-North president Howard Permut said, "We hold our employees to a high standard, and his alleged conduct is completely unacceptable."

(emphasis added)

Gee Wiz! I remember when employees studied for examinations and did not try to find a way to cheat on them. When I was firing on the New Haven the railroad would have rules sessions for those studying for promotion to engineer at maybe New York or New Haven. The rules examiner or somebody else would gather a group of high seniority firemen together and spend a day on the rules, a road foreman would spend some time with the air and the engines. Those who cared about their careers and most of us did would gladly attend one or more of these sessions and those who did passed their examinations for promotion on the first try. I wonder what has happened to that theory today?
Another point, when Metro-North was established in 1982 and took over in 1983 they did not want any T or E person to have free flow back rights with Conrail. That was Metro-North's loss because the best conductors and engineers had prior experience in freight service and in the yard as well, those were the ones who had a well rounded knowledge in railroading that was so vital both then and today. They got their way but they are paying for it today.
Noel Weaver

Travelsonic wrote:Hmmm, the **entire** class fired... that has no chance of becoming a potential ****storm.... /sarcasm

(not saying such a storm is, or isn't, warranted, just ... that it is inevitable)

Wonder how many ACTUALLY cheated, and how many had no knowledge of this going on - and what will happen with them... I mean, if this action was temporary, pending investigation, that'd be one thing, but if I were working my butt off and got lumped in with someone who was cheating, and disciplined without any chance to say "woah there, hold on,", I'd be rightly pissed, but then again, not gonna assume anything factually either way until I hear more.

Given that it was a safety rules test, and the extreme criticism that the railroad has experienced due to the recent unfortunate accidents, I suspect that the more extreme measures had to be taken for appearance sake, versus some lesser remedies' that might have been utilized under other circumstances.

Remember you're all taking your information from a newspaper - which only has about 25% of the facts. I can tell you that I am aware of whats happened and there is A LOT more to this story than the News revealed. Also, keep in mind that these students, less the 3 previous company employees are PROBATIONARY employees and thus AT WILL employees who have NO rights whatsoever. The company can terminate them for any or no reason at all. That's why its called probation. There is a massive police investigation into this as well and I can tell you that working on the railroad there are NO secrets kept. So even if the other students didnt avail themselves of the information, they must have at least been aware of what transpired.

This was also NOT a safety rules exam that was taken - it was just a training class exam.