Worcester Telegram | By Maurice Cunningham | June 24, 2015 In a June 12 As I See It: Give Baker tools to fix the T, Rick Green, chairman of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, boasts that a MFA poll shows eighty percent support for Gov. Baker’s MBTA plan. One problem: the poll is a fraud. I’ve read…
A harmful provision contained in the House version of the state budget seeks to exempt the MBTA from the Taxpayer Protection Act; a state law that requires private contractors to demonstrate at least one penny of savings to taxpayers before state services can be privatized. The State Senate chose not to go along with the…
Dear Ms. Healey, As members of the MBTA Retirement Board (MBTARF), we have read with interest and concern your two articles from Sunday, June 28, 2015 and Monday, June 29, 2015, respectively, describing a “report” authored by, among others, Harry Markopolos casting a negative light on the MBTARF’s financial and actuarial reporting. In order for…
Huffington Post | By Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University | May 23, 2015 Let’s get this straight. I am a penny pincher, who hates waste and wants a lean and efficient government. But, that said, we have to face the fact that our massive privatization of what once were government functions has been…
Billy Moyers & Company | By Angie Schmitt | October 3, 2014 Transit advocates around the country were transfixed by a story in Tennessee this April, when the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity made a bid to pre-emptively kill Nashville bus rapid transit. It was an especially brazen attempt by Charles and David Koch’s political…
Boston Globe | By Larry Hanley | June 15, 2015 Summer is here, but Governor Baker is still exploiting Bostonians’ frustration with last winter’s blizzard breakdown of public transit to push through an MBTA reform package that will jeopardize the service, safety, and affordability of Boston’s bus and rail service. The governor wants to…
Dear brothers and sisters, As you know, our rights, our livelihoods, and our families are under attack with current efforts to privatize the MBTA. However, let us be clear, this is not only an attack on Local 589―it is an attack on the labor movement itself! In response, Local 589’s executive board has organized phone…
Taunton Daily Gazette | By Marc R. Pacheco | June 07. 2015 I am writing to provide important context that is missing from a recent Taunton Daily Gazette Our View, titled, “Getting the T back on Track,” which deals with the Taxpayer Protection Act, sometimes referred to as the “Pacheco Law.” I am writing to provide…
State House News Service | By Andy Metzger |Thursday, May 28 If Gov. Charlie Baker succeeds in a key aspect of his MBTA reform plan he will have uprooted a unique aspect of transit workers collective bargaining rights that harks back more than a century. Unlike other public employee unions, when MBTA workers reach an…
If you have not done so already, please make sure to fill out and fax the documents you received in the mail for joining the Health & Welfare Trust Fund and Davis Vision Program to the following number: (617) 222-1694. The deadline is June 1st. If you have not received anything, please call the MBTA’s…
Dear members, A bill filed by Gov. Charlie Baker to overhaul the MBTA is the subject of a second public hearing this week. Transportation Committee chairs Rep. William Straus and Sen. Thomas McGee will hear the bill (H 3347) this Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Tufts University’s Cohen Auditorium, which is located at 40 Talbot Avenue Medford,…
State House News Service | By MATT MURPHY | May 22, 2015 The Senate shortly after midnight Friday morning unanimously passed a $38.1 billion budget plan for the fiscal year that begins in July after Democrats and Republicans came together over a compromise to put the MBTA under the authority of financial control board. The…
Commonwealth Magazine | By Bruce Mohl | May 21, 2015 THE MBTA RESTORED full service to the Orange Line in March but nevertheless shipped 24 disabled Orange Line traction motors to an outside contractor for repair. The T says it expects to receive the first of the refurbished motors back on Friday after more than…
The Lowell Sun | Peter Lucas | May 19, 2015 How many Massachusetts politicians do you know who have a law named after them? Not many, I am sure. But one who does is state Sen. Marc Pacheco, author and champion of the “Pacheco Law,” which, from time to time, Republicans and conservatives love to…