Chiarello Blasts Lieber at MTA Board Meeting
"We had a member whose neck was slashed, a Conductor, sticking their head out of the window, doing their job. That same person is not getting paid their differential. Again, we had a person who put out a passenger who was set on fire, they're not getting paid. Another one, punched in the fact. Another one, hit in the back of the head. When is it going to end?"
He noted that he told the MTA not to move workers compensation administration to third-party vendor Sedgwick until they were ready. However, the President said, CEO Lieber “has a soft spot for privatization…which he has demonstrated by sending projects to outside contractors.” In this case, Chiarello added, [Lieber’s policy] has produced “disastrous results.”
Despite repeatedly being told his time to speak was up and even after the mic was cut, President Chiarello made his full remarks.
President Chiarello was followed by two retired MTA wor
kers who recounted their payment shortfalls to the board.
Both retired Bus Operator Charles Wilson, who suffered a career-ending back injury after 32 years of service, and Emily Louise Allen, a retired Station Agent who also served with the U.S. Army, said that payments for disabilities were received late.
“My bills need to be paid,” Allen told Lieber. “They can cut off my phone. My money doesn’t run like your money… you need to give us our checks on time. My claim person at the MTA could have [my payments] on time for 24 years. There’s no reason for this company to be late.”
At a press conference outside the boardroom, Chiarello elaborated.
“The mortgage is not going to wait. Their bills are not going to wait,” he said of transit workers. “There’s just no excuse for this.”
“This is total mismanagement, a black eye to the MTA,” he added, “for something that they should not have given away – it should [have] stayed in house.”
International President John Samuelsen called the MTA’s decision to contract with Sedgwick “a business scheme. They figure that if they shaft transit workers out of paychecks, that even if they have a hernia or a spinal injury, they will come back to work,” he said.
“This is a plan by Janno Lieber and the MTA to get transit workers that are injured to come back to work. They want them to suffer. They want them to miss mortgage payments, to miss rent, to miss tuition payments for their children to get them back to work. They’d rather have injured transit workers coming back to work than get them paid on time and have happy, productive workers. It’s appalling, it’s evil.”