Union stiffens against MBTA job privatization
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Angered by what they described as a new push to privatize jobs at the MBTA, members of the union that represents more than half of MBTA employees filled the audience at a meeting of the Department of Transportation and MBTA control boards Monday and aired their grievances with T brass.
"It has become very clear that there is no end in sight to privatization plans," said James O'Brien, president of the Boston Carmen's Union Local 589, noting discussions of outsourcing jobs in the T's money room, its warehouse operations, and some bus routes and maintenance. "It isn't good for the hardworking employees of the MBTA, and it isn't good for the system and it certainly isn't good for our riders."
MBTA officials are actively exploring privatization of inventory and cash management operations in an attempt save money and improve services at the agency, which has battled perennial budget imbalances.
The agency's Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) in a Sept. 1 report signaled it might seek outsourcing of its core operations.
"The Board's focus to date has been on contracting corporate services, such as cash handling and warehouse operations," the control board wrote. "But these account for only a small portion of total operating costs. If the T is to continue the progress it has made in improving performance, reducing operating costs and shifting operating funds to meet critical capital needs, the FMCB must also address those areas that make up about 85 percent of all costs, namely operations and maintenance."
Last year lawmakers suspended the so-called Pacheco Law, which requires a privatization proposal to be vetted by the state auditor, to give the MBTA a three-year window to privatize services.
FMCB Vice Chair Steve Poftak said Monday the board would apply its waiver from the Pacheco Law "only if doing so is in the best interest of the traveling public" and taxpayers.
The FMCB has "sought to be deliberative and in some corners too cautious in applying this waiver, and this is for a good reason," Poftak said. "We have found that some past T contracts with private vendors were not properly designed, implemented and managed."
The carmen's union, which represents more than 4,100 of the MBTA's roughly 6,500 employees, held an "informational rally" before the meeting of the MassDOT board and the MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board to make its opposition to privatization known.
Union members and supporters wore bright orange T-shirts with the Local 589 logo and some held signs reading, "Keep public transportation public!!!!! Stop MBTA privatization."
Lou Antonellis, president of IBEW Local 103, spoke in solidarity with the carmen's union and forcefully argued that Gov. Charlie Baker has pushed privatization at the T without regard for the livelihood of union employees.
"We are being squeezed and pushed out of the middle class by a governor that quite frankly doesn't give a shit about any of us," Antonellis said. "It's getting harder and harder every day to make it and we don't need your foot on our throats. These folks here aren't what's wrong with the MBTA. These folks behind me ... are what is absolutely right about the MBTA."
MBTA privatization was a heated issue the last time Baker served in state government -- in the mid-1990s -- that led to several spats between the carmen's union and Republican Gov. William Weld, Baker's political mentor.
Weld once championed privatization as a way to save money and in 1995 offered a downsizing plan that promised annual savings of $1 million by privatizing certain bus routes. His efforts to save money by outsourcing MBTA work riled the union and led to a campaign of bumper stickers that read, "MBTA Privatization is a Weld Scam."
More than 20 years later, there are now bumper stickers that say, "MBTA Privatization is a Baker Scam."
At a July press conference to highlight progress made in the year since the MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board was established, Baker said, "I don't care if a service is provided publicly or privately. What I care about is performance, productivity," and that public money is "well spent."
The state Democratic Party on Monday issued a statement saying it stands with the carmen's union and lambasting Baker for pursuing privatization.
"The hard working men and women of the MBTA are not the problem with this system; the problems lie with the lack of leadership and direction in fixing an under-funded and over-utilized public transit system," party chairman Tom McGee, who is also the Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, said in a statement. "Governor Baker's push for privatization does little more than ensure that working men and women would lose jobs. The legislature gave the administration the tools to work with the MBTA, but unfortunately Governor Baker only wants to use what should be a last resort as his first option."
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