State House News Service | By Andy Metzger | October 12, 2016

Filling the air outside Faneuil Hall on Wednesday with charged rhetoric about corporations profiting off government work, union officials and elected Democrats railed against privatization at the MBTA without charting a clear course for stopping those moves anytime soon.

“I’m not happy with our legislators, especially in the House, for writing this into the budget, and not having a debate, and not having a roll call. That was wrong. We need to have a democracy in our Legislature, and it didn’t happen on this issue,” AFL-CIO Massachusetts President Steve Tolman told the crowd.

Tolman said the T’s move to privatize cash handling doesn’t pass the “smell test,” pointing out the T’s consultant on the project, Shellie Crandall, has worked for both Brinks and GardaWorld, the two companies to bid on the work.

“She’s an outsourcer,” Tolman told the News Service. Referencing the governor’s claim that MBTA workers cut sunroofs in armored trucks – a charge strongly disputed by the union, backing up its defense with photos – Tolman said, “It’s only starting with the money room. And the inappropriate manner that they operated in, providing the public with misinformation to get the public against MBTA employees is totally wrong.”

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