MTA needs labor leeway to avoid red ink
In 2018, seven of the top 10 MTA earners, including overtime pay, worked for the Long Island Rail Road, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
The troubling spike in the Long Island Rail Road’s overtime expenses and the disturbing news that some individual senior workers have accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime must be investigated and brought under control.
So, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief executive Pat Foye’s decision to study overtime regulations, claims and payments, along with how work hours and attendance are verified, is crucial.
But the overtime story unfortunately is part of a larger picture of dysfunction that’s expected to crystallize in the coming months:
No effort to reform the nation’s largest public transit system will succeed without significant changes to its union contracts, including work rules, pay and guidelines that allow excess overtime to pad pensions.
This is the time to make those changes. Most of the MTA’s 74,000 employees are governed by collective bargaining agreements that expire this year. That includes the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, which represents LIRR conductors, track workers, and more, and the Transport Workers Union, which represents subway and bus workers.
A report by the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, which studies state and New York City finances, painted a dreadful picture of the MTA’s fiscal outlook, showing annual deficits approaching $1 billion by 2022. The commission argued correctly that labor costs, expected to reach more than $10 billion this year, must be controlled. The commission said MTA wage growth has outpaced that of other public unions, while worker contributions to benefits are lower than those made by other state employees and nonunion MTA workers.
Then there’s overtime. Some overtime is certainly necessary. But the MTA’s highest-paid employee in 2018 was the LIRR’s recently retired chief measurement operator, Thomas Caputo, who earned $344,147 in overtime, on top of a $117,499 salary, in a job in which he examined the tracks for defects. LIRR overtime costs have grown by more than 50 percent since 2015. This raises serious concerns about the MTA’s fiscal stability, the adequacy of timekeeping and a culture that allows senior workers to take the spoils. And where in the stew is the safety of the employees, who put in punishing hours and do risky work?
The commission also found that if LIRR workers’ productivity matched that of Metro-North workers, the MTA would have saved $86 million in 2017 alone. Increased productivity — along with work rules that can make schedules more flexible, shift seniority guidelines, add automation and ease the limitations of strictly defined job titles— must be on the table. Overtime costs are only one glaring concern in difficult labor negotiations. The only way to turn the MTA into a well-run, well-managed bureaucracy that can adapt public transit to the 21st century is if it can free itself from the constraints of ancient work rules and practices.
In 2014, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo stepped in to broker deals with LIRR and subway workers’ unions that failed to deliver needed change. This time, MTA officials and the governor must pair significant reforms with a fair deal for transit and rail workers. And the unions must be part of the solution to the MTA’s problems. — The editorial board
