MTA White Collar Jobs Continue To Be Saved
Over the last few months, the biggest story on this blog & in the world of local mass transit has been the MTA’s financial crisis. The crisis has been the biggest sticking point in the latest round of the never ending war between the much maligned transit agency & Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU Local 100) in which the union is fighting to save jobs in which the agency is desperate to eliminate.
Throughout this process, one of my major sticking points was how the MTA needed to not only focus on fiscal savings through job cuts to its blue-collar workforce but in the severely bloated white-collar management workforce as well. It seemed report after report focused on how they wanted to cut blue-collar jobs but little to nothing was coming out in terms of fiscal savings on the management side.
So it comes as no surprise that a report in today’s New York Daily News reveals how many white-collar jobs continued to be saved from the chopping block while blue-collar ones are not. Pete Donohue has more:
Only a handful of six-figure executives at MTA headquarters were shown the door in a recent payroll purge that put dozens of mid- and low-level employees out of work, the Daily News has learned.
Even though more than 200 headquarters staffers were making between $100,000 and $350,000 a year before the budget ax fell this month, just five of the 49 laid off administration workers earned that much, according to data provided by the MTA.
At the other end of the pay ladder, 22 employees making $55,000 or less – including seven secretaries – were pink-slipped, according to the MTA data.
“It’s really amazing,” a veteran staffer said of the purge. “It’s a lot of secretaries and assistants and very few big shots.”
One MTA official speaking on condition of anonymity said it should come as no surprise that few upper-level managers were released in the agency’s attempt to close its budget gap.
They were, after all, the ones following a directive by MTA Chairman Jay Walder to reduce administrative payroll in their areas by 20%, so they couldn’t be expected to lay off themselves, the official said.
Click here for the complete report.
This report comes as absolutely no surprise to me as I have seen it play out like this the entire time. I have lost count on home many times I have opined on how if the MTA is serious about proper fiscal management, they need to eliminate positions all across the board & not just to the meat & potatoes of the operation. Yet it seemed that at every turn, they displayed a narrow minded focus on such jobs.
Enough is enough, stop attacking the people who make this system run while ignoring the excessive waste in terms of spending & job positions in the white-collar section of the agency. Stop portraying an image of seriously looking to cut back if all you are doing is attacking the little guy & saving the asses of those who don’t need it!
xoxo Transit Blogger
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