{"id":324282,"date":"2017-09-02T08:48:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T07:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/boston-area-transit-privatization-plan-goes-forward-amid-allegations-of-corruptionmismanagement\/"},"modified":"2017-09-02T08:48:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T07:48:40","slug":"boston-area-transit-privatization-plan-goes-forward-amid-allegations-of-corruptionmismanagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/boston-area-transit-privatization-plan-goes-forward-amid-allegations-of-corruptionmismanagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston area transit privatization plan goes forward amid allegations of corruption\/mismanagement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Boston area transit privatization plan goes forward amid allegations of corruption\/mismanagement<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    John Marion<br \/>\n    <br \/>2 September 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The privatization of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) serving greater Boston is moving forward, amidst allegations of mismanagement and corruption on the part of state officials. This has included the hiring of a General Executive to head the system with no previous transportation experience and conflicts of interest in the hiring of contractors.<\/p>\n<p>After record snowfalls in February 2015 caused the near-collapse of Boston\u2019s public transportation system, the administration of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker jumped at the opportunity to use the crisis as an excuse for the privatization of the system. The MBTA \u2014 including buses, subways, trolleys, and heavy commuter rail \u2014 had been a public agency for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n<p>Baker created an unelected Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB), which has attacked workers\u2019 benefits while privatizing cash handling, spare parts warehouses, customer service jobs, and now three of the system\u2019s bus maintenance yards. In December 2016 the FMCB used the threat of privatization to force Boston Carmen\u2019s Union Local 589, the largest MBTA union, into a deal (HYPERLINK &#8220;http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2016\/12\/22\/mbta-d22.html&#8221;http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2016\/12\/22\/mbta-d22.html ) which slashed raises in a contract that wasn\u2019t set to expire for another two years.<\/p>\n<p>A Human Resources Workforce &amp; Strategy update, summarizing the first six months of this year and available on the FMCB\u2019s web site, states that 746 workers have been \u201cseparated,\u201d through being either fired or goaded into early retirement agreements. The average yearly salary of these workers is $76,000; the&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/09\/02\/mbta-s02.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Boston area transit privatization plan goes forward amid allegations of corruption\/mismanagement By John Marion 2 September 2017 The privatization of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) serving greater Boston is moving forward, amidst allegations of mismanagement and corruption on the part of state officials. This has included the hiring of a General Executive to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-324282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}