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Don't blame the carmen's union for this one

By adamg on Wed, 07/09/2008 - 9:40am

The Outraged Liberal explains why, if you're going to get upset about raises at the T in times like these, you should direct your ire toward Dan Grabauskas and his incompetent managers, because they knew the union would likely be awarded a raise in arbitration and yet did nothing to try to budget for it:

... Yakking on about the concessions he has obtained as part of those talks can't hide the act that Grabauskas and his team failed basic accounting.

Did they really think the arbitrator would not award salary increases and make them retroactive to the start of negotiations?

And we're not talking about excessive compensation. We are talking about roughly 3 percent annually, which I would venture is probably par for the course in just about every business. ...

Topics: 
The T
Free tagging: 
Dan Grabauskas


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Comments

By anon on Wed, 07/09/2008 - 10:38am.

Apparently, the Outraged Liberal missed the first day of class in Accounting 101. You don't pull a dollar figure out of thin air, and then hope it turns out to be true.
According to the stories I read, the arbitrator could have decided on a wage increase anywhere between 0% and 6% for each year. Was the T to assume the 6% hike? If so, it's likely that service cuts would already have been made... on nothing more than a hunch.
Also, wasn't the Globe story written by the same reporter who royally screwed up the other T story about the Greenbush bridge? Talk about bad math. That Globe story last month referred to a 135 year old bridge as being 'just 3 years old.'

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By outragedliberal on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 5:18am.

No accounting classes needed to come up with the common sense action of setting aside money to pay for things you know you are going to have to buy. No reserve for a collective bargaining wage hike? Find another budget that doesn't do that?

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By anon on Fri, 07/11/2008 - 11:04pm.

Probably the same budget that allows people to retire after 20-some years, regardless of age. What a mistake I made, working my way through college and grad school. I'm still working at 62 and T drivers are retired at 47.

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By YaThink! on Thu, 07/10/2008 - 9:17am.

From the Globe today:

Armed with a small napkin and an icy Diet Coke, Judy Callahan waited for the Mattapan trolley yesterday, which she expected to offer little relief from the blazing afternoon sun.

"You've got to have something to drink on the T," said Callahan, of Cedar Grove, as a cluster of video cameras and news reporters gathered at the Ashmont MBTA station created a buzz among commuters that this day would be different, that the historic Red Line trolley car would finally be air-conditioned.

But when Car 3230 pulled up to the platform, it was no haven from the heat. The new air-conditioning system, the first to be installed in the Mattapan trolley fleet, broke down en route to its debut at Ashmont, disappointing MBTA officials who said the system has been working since it was installed at the end of June.

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