Thread by @2AvSagas

It’s worse than that. Cuomo’s own initiatives - the ongoing Emergency Order and Subway Action Plan - are the two biggest drivers of the overtime spike. LIRR OT padding’s is a separate issue that’s been ongoing for the entirety of the 8+ years of Cuomo’s admin.

https://twitter.com/marketurbanism/status/1126843145688428549

Cuomo has been a negligent and inept leader of the MTA and now he’s using his lapdog Melissa DeRosa to blame others through leaks to the press. That’s not leadership but it’s a great example of why @ReinventAlbany & others warned against these false reforms Cuomo pushed in March.

@ReinventAlbany I'm working up a short post on the overtime "emergency" board meeting, and here's what the MTA's own Finance Committee materials said about the source of OT.

@ReinventAlbany You're not going to believe what the biggest driver in unplanned overtime costs were in 2017 either.

Wait, maybe you will believe it.

@ReinventAlbany Anyway, I wrote this whole thing up ahead of the 4 p.m. Board meeting because I wanted to get this all off my chest. Political theater isn't MTA reform, and the overtime/LIRR issues are a direct result of Andrew Cuomo's own decisions.

More here: 2avesag.as/2JrBupY

LIRR workers are now refusing OT shifts this weekend as part of an unsanctioned job action against the MTA's posting cops to monitor time sheets.
abc7ny.com/traffic/lirr-r…

https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/1126898019784437760

Here's the (almost) money quote. The MTA, in this case, doing the blaming is Cuomo.

Strong start to this mess.

You can watch live when the executive session is over: service.mta.info/webcastplayer/…

https://twitter.com/AlfonsoReports/status/1126940811285946370

Larry Schwartz (read: Cuomo) wants to hire an outside investigator who is a former proseuctor to understand why there's overtime and pension control issues at the MTA. He calls it abuse. I call it "Governor Cuomo's doing."

This is a set-up: 2avesag.as/2JrBupY

Schwartz is talking about reviewing MTA IG reports from the last 10 years as though he hasn't been on the MTA since 2015 and head of the Finance Committee since Sept. 2016. I can't stress enough how this is a huge sham due only to Cuomo's bad headlines right now.

I realize this isn't sexy stuff and maybe you're bored by it, but it's entirely indicative of the way Cuomo manages and why he is one of the biggest barrier to MTA progress and reform. The fix is in, and Cuomo's too powerful for anyone to stand up to him and say this.

Schwartz is now citing reports and agreements Cuomo when Attorney General produced in 2010. So Cuomo's spent a full decade now ignoring the issue? Is that the argument here? Jeez.

Can't ask questions of Cuomo's appointees as to how this farce arose. Convenient.

https://twitter.com/danrivoli/status/1126944418802667520

Schwartz is raising good questions regarding how overtime hours at counted (i.e., you work 8 OT hours on the weekend but get paid for more). These are good questions, but Schwartz's buddy Cuomo signed off on these contracts even as others warned against exactly this outcome.

The fireworks are about to fly as Vincent Tessitore, the LIRR labor rep, is ripping into Schwartz: "You just pointed fingers at every single MTA worker our system."

Tessitore: "Do you think our workers want to stay overnight? No, and when they want to leave, they're ordered to stay overnight."

He is P-I-S-S-E-D: "I'm embarrassed for this board right now...You can't call the[ workers] out like that."

Tessitore is throwing down the gauntlet: "This Board has to be really careful with the message they're sending to the MTA workforce."

🔥🔥🔥

Here's Norman Brown, another labor rep on the MTA Board: "If you don't want them to work overtime, then don't ask them to work overtime."

More Brown: "Who do you think are going to be responsible for implementing all the genius ideas the Deans of the Engineering Schools and Alix Partners comes up with?"

This is a Festivus-level airing of grievances, and it's good.

John Samuelsen (TWU) is slamming the MTA for sending armed police into work places to monitor time sheets.

"You should all be so totally embarrassed."

Samuelsen to Schwartz: "You've been on the Board for four years. What have you been doing?...This is all high theater. This is all nonsense."

Watching this like

Samuelsen is now explicitly drawing the line between the Subway Action Plan and OT. He says the SAP required 2000 workers, and MTA hired only around 700. "Is it a shock overtime is being paid out more during the Subway Action Plan?"

That's what I said: 2avesag.as/2JrBupY

I've had my issues with transit labor unions over the years and still think we need some work rule reform. But Samuelsen, Brown and Tessitore are absolutely right here and right to be pissed.

To fix the system, "you are assigning us overtime...this is a management problem."

Samuelsen is now riffing on the biometric devices: "We're going to get overtime to maintain the biometric devices in a state of good repair, and you're going to come back to the board and say 'There's fraud in overtime maintaining the biometric devices.'"

He's essentially messaging to his workers to do nothing more than their roles now that the MTA sent armed cops into workplace, and Samuelsen is going to talk to the press about specific examples of management abuse. He's so mad.

There's a pretty good chance this meeting is going to end with a fist fight between Larry Schwartz and John Samuelsen.

Did Schwartz/Cuomo think this through?

Samuelsen: "The MTA came to the TWU & asked the TWU to lift the overtime caps....The company needed so much work done that they came to us and bargained to remove the caps....that's outrageous. Do they even realize how outrageous this is?"

In a stodgy presentation, MTA CFO Bob Foran is now stressing what I said earlier today: Much of the MTA's increase in overtime spending over the past two years has grown out of Cuomo's Subway Action Plan.

Like much with the MTA: There's a need to reform MTA overtime (including how overtime is defined). This public airing of grievances in a quasi-slanderous fashion by Cuomo's MTA Board ally was not the way to go. This is going to torpedo already-low MTA morale.

Rachael's is my secondary takeaway from this meeting.

https://twitter.com/RachaelFauss/status/1126963918503645185

As hour two of this emergency meeting drags on, Freddie Ferrar is defending his hiring freeze which has been, by all accounts, a catastrophically bad decision for the MTA. This is tediously pointless at this point.

The overwhelming consensus from today’s meeting was that actual OT fraud was exceedingly rare and that an outside consultant wasn’t needed to review time-and-attendance practices.

So what did Foye do?

He parroted Cuomo’s guy in a statement.

I remember taking some grief when I said Foye would be a Cuomo yes man. Some assured me he would be sympathetic to the governor but of his own mind.

🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️