Brothers and Sisters,

By now, most of you have already seen the news. The MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board rushed a decision to privatize today, taking a 4-0 vote to allow Acting General Manager Brian Shortsleeve to enter into contract negotiations with Brink’s to take over Money Room operations.

It is clear that this was a foregone conclusion from the beginning. As you know, we have been fighting for the last year to find real solutions to the MBTA’s problems. We made repeated attempts to engage the MBTA leadership in genuine negotiations to prevent privatization.

But the bigger news today is that while the Boston Carmen’s Union Executive Leadership was taking action and standing our ground, Shortsleeve was explaining in a press conference that “everything is on the table” when it comes to MBTA operations being considered for outsourcing. That’s not what the State Legislature intended when this privatization authority was approved. And we’re going to keep fighting.

We have many questions regarding the audit conducted – which remains unavailable to public view―and the numbers used to justify this rush to privatization. But the Fiscal and Management Control Board spent less than 10 minutes asking questions about this proposal before a unanimous vote of the board members in attendance―proof that, as we had expected, these decisions had already been made behind closed doors, and not in the transparent manner to which the Administration and the MBTA have said they are committed.

We deserve better. Each and every one of you, as the hardworking employees of the MBTA, deserve better. And the public and the riders deserve better. Even though this contract is moving forward, we’re not going to back down from this fight to stop privatization.

We will be rallying again on Tuesday, October 11 at 6 a.m. at Dudley Station and again on Wednesday, October 12 at noon at Faneuil Hall. We will continue to to step up our action and show the Baker Administration, MBTA leadership, the public, and the riders that privatization is wrong for Massachusetts.

Thank you to all who came out to support the Executive Board and your brothers and sisters at the Money Room this morning.

If you can’t make it to one of these rallies, please contact us and ask what you can do to help out.

In Solidarity,