MTA Eliminates 120 More Workers
The cost cutting via blue-collar workforce positions within the MTA continued this past Friday as the agency laid off 120 more workers. At the same time, they filled a new white-collar management position by hiring Diana Ritter Jones & giving her a $217,000 annual salary. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more:
ANOTHER BATCH of transit workers was laid off yesterday, bringing the number of pink-slipped employees to about 1,000.
The latest wave of layoffs – 120 subway car mechanics and inspectors – will turn in their gear at a NYC Transit facility in Brooklyn today.
MTA officials, meanwhile, announced the hiring of a state commissioner of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities to fill a newly created managing director post with a $217,000 salary.
Diana Jones Ritter will manage headquarters staff and oversee the consolidation of divisional press offices, corporate communications departments and five call centers. The consolidation will save an estimated $10 million, the MTA said.
Click here for the complete report.
If the New York Daily News’ goal was to anger people with this story, they succeeded. I am all for the agency finding ways to crawl out from the financial hole it finds itself in. However it pains me to continue seeing it happen on the backs of its blue-collar workforce while nowhere near as much is being done within the white-collar section.
Saving $10M annually while doing much needed consolidation is good, does it need to be done via yet another new position with a 6 figure salary? Couldn’t this job have been filled by someone from within as part of their current tasks? Spending six figures on yet another position sure does not seem like the wisest financial decision yet it occurred.
They seriously need to get their house in order while tackling their biggest foe, the lack of sustainable funding options from the city & state government.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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[…] an entry about the MTA continuing its cost cutting measures in the blue-collar workforce as they laid off 120 more workers. In that same story in the New York Daily News, it was announced that the MTA hired a new state […]