The MTA needs to end insane union privileges at – Latest News
In the most recent signal of how badly the MTA’s labor contracts serve the public as a complete, final week introduced a contemporary Metro-North Railroad scandal: Two now-suspended fraudsters allegedly faked commuter station security and gear checks — with one “worker” eating out whereas on the clock.
Managers found the rip-off after noticing that varieties claiming the work obtained executed at a specific time didn’t jibe with GPS data displaying the inspectors’ automobiles had been elsewhere.
The failure to conduct necessary checks, inspections and upkeep places commuters’ lives at risk, and that is removed from the primary outrageous fraud by MTA railroad staff.
In 2024, an audit discovered different Metro-North inspectors faked checks, with 100 security checks by no means being accomplished alongside the New Haven line and New Canaan department.
Also final 12 months, the inspector normal discovered that a Metro-North supervisor repeatedly disabled his work vehicle’s GPS to run personal errands.
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A 2019 Empire Center report trying at spikes in MTA extra time spending at the LIRR blew the lid off the use of extra time to inflate pensions.
For years, the Empire Center and different critics have pointed to insane union work guidelines and weak management oversight that allows systemic abuses at the MTA’s two commuter railroads, burning taxpayer money and endangering passengers.
The railroad staff’ union contracts mandate exorbitant pay and work guidelines that drive prices via the roof, leaving commuters and taxpayers on the hook.
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The LIRR lags even Metro-North, which at least has embraced cameras, GPS and biometrics to curtail abuses and raise productiveness — although privileges in union contracts can exclude that proof from disciplinary proceedings, or at least make it take months to terminate cheats or rank incompetents.
Cross your fingers that ongoing contract talks can remove some of essentially the most obscene work guidelines.
“We have to stand up for the riders,” MTA boss Janno Lieber lately vowed to The Post Editorial Board.
Indeed: As LIRR talks proceed, now with federal mediators concerned, MTA management should insist on modifications to increase productiveness and end privileges that exist purely to defend fraudsters and featherbedders.
With the state and metropolis and the MTA itself all going through main price range gaps in coming years, it’s important to get the railroads on a sane financial monitor.
