In case you didn’t feel safe using public transportation, you’ll feel even more unsafe knowing that 54 MBTA employees that operate buses, trains and trolleys are still employeed by the T.
The MBTA is clinging to a two-strike policy for substance abusers even as a Herald review shows a staggering 54 bus drivers, train and trolley operators and others who failed drug and alcohol tests since 2006 still have a ticket to ride.
The Herald requested T substance abuse test results for the past three years after a pair of Green Line crashes last month. The trolley operators were both fired after failing drug tests after the accidents, including one in which a Boston College student was struck.
Yet the review showed 77 bus drivers, train and trolley operators and other T workers failed the tests over the past three years - but only 21 lost their jobs as a result, with two others resigning.
The T randomly tests employees in “safety sensitive” positions such as train operators. Those who fail get 40-day unpaid suspensions but are given second chances unless they’ve been involved in an accident.
Transportation watchdogs slammed the transit agency’s two-strike policy for workers charged with the public safety of passengers, who take more than 1.3 million rides on a typical weekday.
“I’d have a zero-tolerance policy,” said Eric Bourassa, a member of the MBTA Riders Oversight Committee. “If I were the MBTA, I’d revisit that policy.”
Sen. Robert Hedlund, a Plymouth Republican on the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, also said the T shouldn’t be doling out second chances.
“T policy has to be extremely firm,” Hedlund said. “If anyone is found under the influence of anything on company time, it should be a one-strike policy.”
Sounds good to me, particularly considering confidence in the T can’t be doing all that well lately.
In compliance with Federal Transit Administration regulations, some 8,777 T employees have been randomly tested since 2006. Of the 77 who flunked, 21 were fired, two resigned and 54 received 40-day unpaid suspensions. The T did not disclose the names of those who failed.
Paul Griffo, an FTA spokesman, said the T’s substance abuse-test failure rate is typical of other transit systems across the country, and he praised the T for its high rate of testing done after superiors have a reasonable suspicion a worker is high or drunk.
“It’s a clear sign they’re taking extra steps to ensure the safety of their passengers,” Griffo said.
So the failure rate is typical for other transit systems country-wide? Again, real encouraging.
If you really care about the safety of the passengers, let’s move to a one-strike and your out policy. I don’t want read about another MBTA accident, or be in one.
Tags: MBTA
December 17th, 2008
Last week, the Boston Herald reported that Deval Patrick’s transportation secretary, Bernard Cohen, has given his his own staff 195 pay increases, even after he pressured MBTA general manager Dan Grabauskas into rescinding pay raises to his own employees.
The state transportation chief who pressured T general manager Dan Grabauskas into rescinding pay raises this week said he won’t halt 195 pay hikes he granted his own staff.
“I think it’s pretty hypocritical for the secretary to look at other agencies and departments and grandstand when he has different standards in his own shop,” said Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield).
Transportation secretary Bernard Cohen asked Grabauskas to halt the raises the T chief gave 273 employees this week as an effort to “leave no stone unturned in restoring fiscal health to all transportation agencies.”
But at his own transportation agency, Cohen granted pay hikes ranging from 1 percent to 7.5 percent last year. Some of the annual raises far exceed the hike given to Grabauskas staffers, who were supposed to get a 3 percent raise each of the next three years.
[...]
The annual raises, which Cohen has final say over, are based on merit and performance evaluations. Employees must be in the bottom half of the agency’s salary range and produce exceptional work in order to get more than a 6 percent raise.
Grabauskas granted an automatic 9 percent raise to non-union staffers to keep them in line with a recent union pay hike last week, but then rescinded most of the raises when Cohen leaned on him. News of the pay hikes broke shortly after Grabauskas hinted at a potential fare increase unless the state helped with an $8.2 billion debt load.
Adding insult to injury, the Herald reported today that the state payroll has exploded, even with the current economic downturn.
Gov. Deval Patrick has added almost 2,000 new workers to the state payroll in the past year even as he warns of dire budget cuts in the face of a $1 billion deficit, a Herald review shows.
And his administration continues to dole out millions in overtime, with nearly 80 prison guards raking in more than $100,000.
A mid-year Herald payroll analysis reveals that since July 2007, the number of state jobs has jumped by about 1,900, many of them new hires in the Department of Correction and MassHighway.
The soaring payroll comes at a time when the state is stepping in to bail out a debt-ridden Mass Pike and being asked to do the same for the MBTA, and the governor is requesting special powers to cut the budget this fall if the local economy continues tanking.
“It’s very worrisome,” Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, said of the hiring frenzy. “It’s a problem, given that we’re probably heading into a recession, and we’ve been borrowing extensively.”
Barbara Anderson, of Citizens for Limited Taxation, told the Herald it’s time for state officials to get off “the gravy train.” They’re riding the gravy train alright… and Deval Patrick is the engineer.
Tags: Barbara Anderson, Deval Patrick, MBTA
August 25th, 2008
The Boston Herald editorial staff hit the nail on the head regarding the pay raises at the MBTA that are occurring while their debt is a staggering $8 billion, and fare hikes are just around the corner.
The MBTA can try to argue that giving the same raise to non-union workers that unionized personnel won in an arbitration settlement is the fair thing to do. But MBTA riders who are trying to get by without raises at all in this dismal economy won’t see it that way. And neither do we.
Fine, so the non-union workers who will get the 9 percent raise over three years aren’t all fat-cat executives. They include administrative assistants and others who will also have to accept the concessions the T won during arbitration, such as higher health insurance deductibles and a requirement that retirees pay a portion of their health insurance for the first time.
But with $8 billion in debt, the possibility of a massive fare hike looming and no money on hand to meet its ever-growing obligations, the MBTA quite simply can’t afford to engage in a practice just because it’s always been that way. No one can!
True, these employees have not had a pay bump since 2005, but we suspect there might be a long line of people who would happily step in for the right to retire with a full pension after 23 years. Withholding pay hikes from non-union workers isn’t “punishing” them for not being union-affiliated. It is acting responsibly as a financial tsunami batters the transit system.
It seems the only way to get a pay raise these days is have your checks bear the seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The solution to all of this, of course, is to privatize the MBTA. If this happened, I’d be willing to bet that fares would be lower, the trains would be cleaner, there would be no $60,000/year no-show jobs, and I bet the trains would arrive on time more often–but I’m not holding my breath…some state senator’s cousin’s son may lose a job. Pay raises anywhere in the state payroll are just irresponsible right now, particularly when the taxes of those non-state payrollees who won’t get a 9% pay raise this year will bear the burden so overpaid employees of the MBTA can get raises for a less than mediocre performance at best.
Tags: MBTA
August 19th, 2008
The Boston Globe has this breaking story.
Two D Line trains have collided in Newton between the Waban and Woodland stations, near Dorset Road. TV reports show two twisted cabs derailed on the track, and one person may be pinned beneath a train. Dozens of emergency responders are on the scene, loading some passengers on stretchers. Shuttle service is operating between Riverside and Reservoir.
UPDATE: MBTA’s Alert
The Boston Herald reports…
Tags: Green Line, MBTA
May 28th, 2008
