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You know how the state says private contractors are so much better than T workers?
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What, were these goons auditioning for a DCR job?
http://universalhub.com/node/16453
full restitution?
so.....they have no idea how much was stolen or how long this has been going on but expect the thieves to make full restitution? And how do they plan to verify what is full restitution?
Well
Restitution or jail time. Or maybe both. Probably a combination.
Full restitution
It's the contractor who's quoted saying they don't know how much was taken. The T can do an inventory and charge the company for everything that shows up missing.
Couple of points...
Couple of points...
Are they subcontractors or employees? FTA, "MANCON, LLC, who employed the two workers, said in a statement that it was "extremely disappointed by the negative actions of two subcontract employees that are accused of stealing MBTA property."
So, they were 'employees' of MANCON, right? Then MANCON is totally responsible for the loss. W-2 means employee, 1099 (I think) means paid by contract. Simple answer, really.
Another thing, FTA, "The arrest was made after MBTA Transit Police responded to a call at the Fellsway Garage in Medford Friday afternoon." I interpret that to mean that some T employee saw some shenanigans and dropped a dime. They apparently did what they did in broad daylight.
Could be Temps...
Mancom employes at lot of temps at $13 to $15 an hour. So they could be temps or could be Mancom permanent employees. Based on the Mancom statement, I'd guess they were temps.
Shocked! I am shocked I say!
Shocked! I am shocked I say!
Subcontracted Warehouse Management
" You can count on Mancon to deliver the right people "
( and hiring a separate, profit-making company from Virginia will save the Ⓣ tons of money )
Ha! Warehouse management and inventory control?
Literally putting the fox in charge of the hen-house. The audit just got more complicated, Certain townies never disappoint. Unskilled labor from Brick Bottom, supplied by the lowest bidder.
Not suprising
As someone who worked for one of these T contractors.. I can say, I'm not surprised. I didn't work for Mancom but I have had friends who did. Not surprising by the least.
Sorry when you pay people minimum wage, do you think they aren't going to steal. I'm not a big pro union guy, but ya know when you are paid well, treated well, and care about your job.. you're going to do a good job and not steal. We had similar problems at where I was, not theft but people not paid enough and not caring about their jobs.
Well
A $15/hour flashlight waver who steals the flashlight ends up costing the city much less than a $60/hour flashlight waver with a fat pension and padded time cards with bogus overtime who does not steal the flashlight.
Straw man
No $15 anythings were stolen. The scrap price for insulated wire is over $1 a pound, so depending on how much they took, these crooks could have gotten thousands of dollars. The replacement costs will be much more.
$60 an hour? Doubtful. Do
$60 an hour? Doubtful. Do you have proof of this claim?
GET ON GOOGLE
and search "cops" and maybe "boston police detail pay"
I'm willing to bet its more that $60/hr actually.
You're willing to bet
But you're not going to do your own googling? If you can't be bothered, why should we?
On the other hand
On the other hand, the MBTA (& MBCR) seems to pay sky high amounts for maintenance, and tolerate plenty of other abuses.
Some of these stories are dated. I'm sure some have complex back-stories. Im sure "lowest bidder" contracts come with their own problems.
But these stories show some trends and reasons why we need to consider changes to the status quo.
High costs:. http://pioneerinstitute.org/better_government/study-finds-mbta-nations-h...
Secret Hide-out:. https://www.democratsunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&fo...
Sick time abuse:. https://www.google.com/amp/s/commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/t-m...
Secret and costly pensions;. https://www.google.com/amp/www.governing.com/blogs/bfc/col-massachusetts...
OK, now
Dig up the stories of waste and graft in private industry. Oh, right -- there aren't any government agencies looking for that.
Good commentary on privitization from BlueMassGroup
http://bluemassgroup.com/2017/10/public-or-private-there-are-a-lot-of-wa...
T-Thieves
Cable or metal theft is a huge problem on the commuter rail lines but the Transit police are spread so thin they don't have the manpower to patrol the rails.They cannot even enforce trespassing on the tracks or fare thieves who waltz right past the police. One can only imagine how many millions of dollars of equipment ranging from tools to generators to laptops computers are being stolen. How many millions of dollars in office supplies and I-phones are missing. This winter when you are standing in six inches of snow at your train station ask yourself what happened to the 20,000 shovels and hundreds of snow blowers the MBTA purchased during the blizzard a few years ago.
And what about the teenage....
... goodwill ambassadors or whatever they are, who have replaced the regular T Station captains, or whatever they were, who actually knew how the trains run, where the elevators are and how to operate a fare machine?
The kids mean well, when they are not stealing canes from blind passengers, but shouldn't they be at the library doing their homework instead of misdirecting passengers?
Hadn't noticed.
What is this? Is it an official thing?
People are People
And thieves are thieves.
Union or non-union.
Government employee or private contractor employee.
Does ANYBODY (including Adam) think these 'fine gentlemen' said to themselves:
"I wouldn't do this if I were a public employee, but, since I'm not, it's OK to steal"?
Reality: If MBTA employees did this:
And now lets compare this one
And now lets compare this one incident to all the scandals involving the agency employees directly and see who comes out looking worse.