MTA layoff train
Agency details plan to cut up to 2,700 jobs
Transit officials said Wednesday that they plan to slash between 1,900 and 2,700 jobs, or up to 4% of the MTA’s workforce, to save as much as $500 million annually over the next three years under the agency’s reorganization.
MTA officials said they plan to reduce the head count at first by allowing people in administrative positions to retire or leave the agency. Pink slips would flow if not enough workers opt out. Other proposed costsaving measures include changing the way construction is managed, officials said.
The full 37-page plan, which was made public Wednesday after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released a summary last Friday, proposes consolidating dozens of administrative offices at MTA headquarters, like its seven legal departments, seven human resource offices and seven finance divisions, accounting for the bulk of the cuts.
The agency desperately needs the money that would be saved. MTA budget experts said earlier this year that it could find itself in a $1 billion hole by 2022.
MTA Chairman Patrick Foye said the reorganization would allow the agency to “deliver better service, complete projects on time and on budget and use its resources effectively and efficiently.”
MTA officials have not determined if they will fire any front-line transit workers, the bulk of whom are represented by Transport Workers Union Local 100 and have been without a contract since May 15.
Officials said cuts to those jobs, like station cleaners, track workers and signal maintainers, will depend on whether or not Local 100 officials agree to integrate and expand techniques used by outside contractors that would make MTA workers more efficient.
Train operators, train conductors and bus operators did not appear to be on the chopping block, according to the reorganization plan.
“They’re smoking crack if they think they’re going to take our work,” said TWU International President John Samuelsen. “We’re in a good situation for negotiating. We own the exclusivity of the maintenance and operation of the subway system.”
MTA board members are scheduled to vote on the reorganization plan during their meeting next week, but agency officials said they will not be able to propose amendments to the reorganization strategy.
“The public has a week to figure out what 37 pages mean for a $17 billion agency,” said Rachael Fauss, an analyst at good-government group Reinvent Albany. “This is not a sustained and robust public engagement process that we have all been asking for.”
The reorganization plan will take more than two years to implement, which did not sit well with Gov. Cuomo, who pushed through legislation earlier this year requiring the MTA to restructure.
“I’m not satisfied with the preliminary report,” Cuomo said Wednesday. “To have no performance measures or goals or dates is a fatal flaw, especially at the MTA, where they never meet a deadline or date.”
Cuomo also said the reorganization is a good opportunity to address the homelessness problem on the subway, but noted the plan did not include any reference to the issue.
Some deadlines are included in the reorganization report, which was written by consulting firm AlixPartners.
The MTA will begin laying off workers in December, according to the reorganization plan, and the cuts could last through the end of 2020.
The agency will also hire a handful of new executives over the next eight months, including a chief operating officer, a head of engineering and a head of accessibility.
“Within the next six months, they should be able to make marked progress,” said Cuomo. “Strip away all the press and all your theories and innuendo and drama, the trains run or the trains don’t run. They’re on time or they’re not on time.”