MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder officially announced plans to eliminate 1000 MTA jobs as part of the agency’s comprehensive cost-cutting measures designed to close a $761 million budget gap. As I reported late last night, the layoff plans will include 600 administrative jobs and 500 station agent positions. The station agent positions were slated for elimination through attrition, but the MTA’s dire financial situation has forced the authority to speed up the timetable for cutting personnel levels.
“The State’s economic crisis demands that the MTA move quickly and decisively to cut costs, and that is exactly what we are doing,” Walder said in a statement. “These layoffs are extremely painful, but we must live within our means and make the tough decisions that businesses and families across New York are making.” The agency noted that it would “comply with applicable statutory and collective bargaining obligations” for those unionized workers due to lose their jobs and that non-union workers would be offered severance packages.
Meanwhile, as part of his overall push to change the way the MTA operates and improve its financially accountability and efficiency, Walder promised more cost-cutting measures in the future. If he is successful, Walder could, despite having to inflict pain upon riders and workers, vastly improve the beleaguered authority. “This is just the beginning of a comprehensive overhaul of how the MTA does business,” he said. “We will be reducing overtime, consolidating redundant functions and working with suppliers to lower costs. We will not stop until I can say that every dollar the MTA receives is spent wisely.”
17 comments
The worst part of this is that unemployment is at an all time high and the Obama administration is trying to save and create jobs, yet here in NY every answer to poor government and mismanagement is to have lower level employees both white and blue collar lose there jobs.
“…unemployment is at an all time high…”
The unemployment rate is even close to the all time high.
10% seems pretty, I thought they said it is the highest since the depression.
If you’re talking about the national unemployment rate, it hit about 25% during the Great Depression. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment dropped to 9.7% in January, from 10.1% in October 2009. In December 1982, unemployment hit 10.8%, so the current rates, while high, are not the highest for the post-WWII era in the U.S.
Remember that most gov statistics are a load of, dare I say it? CRAP! Unemployment numbers are about double what is reported in the press. If you lose your job & you are out of work beyond 26-weeks, you’re no longer counted. It makes the numbers look better then they actually are.
Maybe, but at least Russell is comparing crap to crap instead of crap to oranges.
I’m trying to come up with a comical retort to that one red. I guess the best responce is … “there are lies, dam lies & statistics.”
Sean, you raised two valid objections. One is about the accuracy of the methodologies used by the government. The other is about the different ways to measure unemployment.
As far as I’m aware, the raw employment data used by the BLS is fairly accurate, unlike the inflation numbers.
As far as how the data is used, Alon covered it.
Red also mentioned that I’m comparing the same crap. No matter how flawed it is, the comparison is still #2 to #2.
You’re counted in a broader definition of unemployment. There are six definitions, U1 through U6. The headline figure that is now at 9.7% is U3. The U6 is higher, I believe 16%, but relative to previous recessions it’s not that high: it was higher in the 1990-1 recession, whereas the U3 was only higher in the 1980-2 recession.
Except with the MTA they have too many workers. Jobs being lost elsewhere aren’t duplicates yet at the MTA they’re duplicate and unecessary.
Actually the MTA is always understaffed in ALL operating positions and almost all union positions.
Doesn’t it seem strange that the MTA is laying off 500 union workers from the TA out of the 1000 lay offs across ALL of the branches of the MTA.
Doesn’t it seem strange that the MTA is laying off 500 union workers from the TA out of the 1000 lay offs across ALL of the branches of the MTA.
Nay. Those are 500 workers who would have been eliminated through attrition by the end of 2010 or middle of 2011 anyway. They’re just speeding up that process while holding the steady the number of other union positions.
Mike, I was about to note the same thing…it does seem NYCT-heavy. However, notice the press release states “beginning with more than 600…administrative positions” and “up to 500 NYC Transit station agents”. Yet, the headline reads “more than 1,000 positions.” (Generally, headlines are an editor’s interpretation of the text, and aren’t always correct)
So you could argue that the words “more than” and “up to” could tilt that quite dramatically. The words “beginning with” change it even more. I feel there’s a lot of information to read between-the-lines here. They want to tell the public one thing, the union officials another, and the politicians yet something different. And in the end, there’s really not much being said other than 601 administrative positions being eliminated.
So pb, here’s my take: We hear stories about 400-member PR departments and complaints about line managers overseeing line superintendents overseeing station manager, and yet, when the MTA promises to eliminate some of the redundancies and some of the administrative staff, people complain. We can’t really have it both ways, can we?
These redundancies should have been eliminated a long time ago. They weren’t because there was hope of things like new tolls on all the bridges going into Manhattan. Well, that’s not going to happen right now, and I think that’s good. The MTA needs to get its fiscal house in order. When that happens, then we can talk about new money coming in. Frankly, station agents and unnecessary labor need to be eliminated. This money could be better spent on other things, including Capital Construction!
[…] story, check out my posts on the station agent issue and MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder’s statement on the personnel reductions. I’ll link to the video when CBS posts it to their website. Categories : Asides, Self […]
[…] digested, and while MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder will field some questions on yesterday’s announcement on job cuts, the big-ticket budgetary items won’t arise again until after next month’s public […]