WCVB is reporting that a private guard in charge of protecting the MBTA money room was at his desk sound asleep in the middle of the day. I mention “private guard” as the money room and other positions within the MBTA was targeted by Charlie Baker to privatize and he requested and received a waiver from the Pacheco Law.
The Pacheco Law requires private contractors to provide equal or better service. Apparently, providing equal or better service was a major roadblock for Charlie Baker so he was able to use the hardships of the MBTA during that horrible winter a few years ago and get the Pacheco Law waiver for the MBTA to get this.
Charlie, mark me down as not impressed. But this is my favorite (or saddest) part, the whole pitch for privatization on cash counting when replacing with private companies earlier this year:
Transit officials say the plan will help control costs, improve customer service and modernize the T’s technology by partnering with “best-in-class private companies.”
So I see the photo and what I’m not thinking is “best in class” Charlie. What do you see?
**Update**
Some additional information on the private security firm G4S. At the time the firm was was to start providing security they were in the middle of a scandal in their employee screening process. The Orlando attack killing 49 people was an employee of G4S, so how well does G4S screen employees? That question did not stop Charlie Baker’s incompetent MBTA team from continuing with the installation of the private security firm. Via Statehouse News, Sen. Kathleen O’Connor Ives:
If G4S is having difficulties maintaining the qualities of their staffing and ensuring the proper background checks are being conducted, then the timing isn’t right for this firm in particular to be considered a suitable replacement for MBTA transit police
Baker’s team apparently did not have any issues, even this this history.
An op-ed in Florida had highlighted problems with the firm:
- This is the same G4S that mismanaged security for the 2012 London Olympics, prompting the U.K. to mobilize 4,700 troops to make up for a personnel shortage, The Wall Street Journal reported. In 2013, G4S was banned for six months from bidding on U.K. government contracts after it overcharged for electronically tagging criminals.
- In 2009, a G4S employee shot and killed two colleagues while in Iraq on a security detail. The U.K. found the company failed to check on the employee’s criminal record, Bloomberg reported.
- In 2006, a federal investigation revealed guards at a division of G4S were sleeping on the job at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant near Miami.
- And last year, a Treasure Coast Newspapers investigation revealed repeated violence at Martin Girls Academy in Stuart.
Then there’s the case of Mateen.
- G4S hired him in 2007, five months after he was “administratively dismissed” from his job at Martin Correctional Institution because he had threatened a Virginia Tech-style attack.
- Under G4S, Mateen worked at the St. Lucie County Courthouse. There, he threatened a sheriff’s deputy, saying he could have al-Qaida kill him and his family, Sheriff Ken Mascara told The New Yorker.
- In 2013, Mateen’s courthouse credentials were revoked by the sheriff’s office because he “exhibited behaviors not conducive to the court atmosphere.”
- So G4S transferred him. Mateen remained an employee of G4S at the time of the attack
…though I’ve so far managed to save the naps for days I DON’T work (or after coming home from teaching). The fan probably would have kept me awake, but honestly this is about being human rather than public vs. private. Yes, he should be awake, but I’ve come to appreciate why I certain other cultures have a midday siesta.
The MBTA has a long history of losing cash from its fare boxes and elsewhere. These positions are hourly, and there has been enormous hostility from Charlie Baker, Bob DeLeo, and others about “MBTA waste”.
Given the context of this picture, I find it devastating — even emblematic.
If you, or this guard, can’t stay awake while in uniform and on the job, then you or this guard needs a new job. The “siesta” is great — and is NOT done while on the clock.
My point was that this anecdote doesn’t do much to inform the public vs. private debate in either direction.
Clearly, public employees can nap just as well as this gentlemen, and thus there was no reason to outsource.
Let there be siestas without middlemen.
By the way, this falls under my “Mr Defends Everything” rubric. I suspect you have a certain mental tic.
Disclaimer: You’re not as bad as Dana Perino. And yes, I know she was just doing her job, but please don’t defend her too! 🙂
…to look first for innocent explanations and refrain from anything that smacks of rush to judgement. Just the way I was raised and would want to be treated myself, I guess.
So, what happened to the ‘sleeper’? Is he still employed?
being Donald Trump’s running mate. He’s still a delegate though, and he’ll be sleeping through the GOP convention.
Maybe he can be contracted to drive the MBTA trains, there was an opening when the runaway train conductor was fired.
Transit Officer on duty left his post and failed to report sleeping guard. Has also been removed.
Reported by the Globe. June 13th article:
So a private company moves in without any kind of notice and within a few weeks we see how incompetent those in charge of the project are.
It may be that is the way he was trained for the job. It might be in the job description.
…?
It’s unclear what is meant by this statement. Please clarify…
joke.
I think we’re seeing the reality of how Charlie Baker and Bob DeLeo view the MBTA.
Focusing on privatization misses the larger point. Mr. Baker and Mr. DeLeo together view the MBTA as an overly expensive patronage haven that isn’t needed and plays no significant role in Massachusetts. “Privatization” is just a strategy for slashing budgets.
I think the word went out to the private sector that these “money room” operations are an easy buck where anybody who wants to can catch a few zzz’s and get paid while doing so.
I think Mr. Baker was shocked — just SHOCKED — to discover that employees are sleeping on the job. Just as gambling is what happens in a gambling establishment, I think that in the world of Mr. Baker and Mr. DeLeo, sleeping on the job is what happens in the offices of the MBTA.
I continue to think this organization is moribund. In my view, we should either kill it or fix it. I strongly suspect that we must do the former before we will be able to do the latter.
At this stage of the game, we would do better to turn Boston’s underground subway system into a network of well-lit, well-paved, and air-conditioned bike routes. I suspect that more people would be able to get where they’re going more affordably, more conveniently, and more safely.
As the article noted, he was not.
The bike route idea sounds awesome. Maybe consider turning a lane of 93 into a bike lane as well. Right now it takes an hour Woburn to downtown. It’s downhill so probably fifteen minutes by bike.
Should have noted that.
Suppose the idea of running vehicles with steel wheels on steel rails had never happened.
I predict that within 5-10 years of doing what you suggest with I-93, somebody would have a brainstorm of putting a pair of rails along one side of the lane, and then running vehicles that made occasional stops. Bikers could board a vehicle at, say, I93/128 interchange in Woburn and get off at another stop at, say, the entrance to the Big Dig tunnel.
I think folks would jump at the suggestion.
We need to keep this kind of thing up. I’m sure most of us here have figured out the Baker gameplan – he has an agency put out some shameful, outrageous information, and then he swoops in a couple of weeks later with his “savior plan” that is privatization.
He just did this a couple of weeks ago with the MBTA money room.
If he can point it out when public employees screw up in an attempt to justify hiring private contractors, then we need to point it out when private employees screw up to show that private contractors are at least no better (and perhaps worse).
Part of the secret Deval Patrick game plan to get lots of people out of prison.
I’m all in favor of privatizing Charlie Baker myself, a handsome man in an empty suit.
moves back, we’d also have one in stock.
That’s what someone once called politics.
Looks like that’s changing a bit. Perhaps we need some pretty people in the Democratic, Libertarian, and Green parties.
Both my father and grandfather worked for the T. It’s awful to see Charlie Baker trying to privatize a service and create a profit on public transportation. We need to put up a strong candidate next election cycle to challenge him.