Union Leaders Charged After Money Room Protest; MBTA Votes to Privatize

CHARLESTOWN, MA — Union officials outside the Mass. Bay Transit Authority's fare collections hub were arrested Thursday — including the union president and executive committee members — as they took a stand against a plan to privatize its operations. The plan was approved later in the day day.

The "much-maligned money room" in Sullivan Square in Charlestown has been the subject of a series of critical reports, including an audit that found doors duct-taped shut, broken locks and more. MBTA officials are now pursuing a $3.6 million proposal that would put management of those operations under a private firm, Brink's C0mpany, and cut as many as 72 jobs.

The move is a bid for fiscal stability and cost savings, acting MBTA General Manager Brian Shortsleeve said, according to The Boston Herald. He also said many of those union jobs would be added back through bus driver hires.

A union spokesman told the paper the MBTA's cost-savings estimates and job numbers are inflated, and the process has not been transparent. You can read the full story here.

Most of the fare collections workers come from the Carmen’s Union Local 589, which led the protest Thursday morning, forming a picket line to block trucks from coming in or out of the money room's gates, ahead of a vote on privatizing operations there.

As of about 7:30 a.m., trucks could again get in and out after the arrests were made and picketers moved, according to Stevens.

Thursday afternoon, a Charlestown Municipal Court judge released seven union officials charged with unlawful assembly on their own recognizance, and ordered them to stay away from that area in Sullivan Square. Among those arrested was Carmen’s Union president James O’Brien.

Meanwhile, the MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board unanimously agreed to proceed with the privatization plan, giving the go-ahead on the Brinks contract through a 4-0 vote Thursday afternoon.

Photo via Patch archive