A MEMBER OF THE MBTA’S Fiscal and Management Control Board criticized agency officials on Monday for presenting data on employee absenteeism in a way that made it appear union workers were irresponsibly taking days off.
Brian Lang, who serves on the board and heads a union himself, bristled at a series of slides showing the percentage of workers with unscheduled absences in the many job categories at the T during the three-month period ending June 30. The percentages ran from a low of 2.5 percent for nonunion executives to a high of 19.5 percent for call center workers. Overall, the percentage was 7.68 percent for all T workers, down from 7.85 percent in the prior quarter.
Lang said the data gave the impression that T workers were irresponsibly skipping work, leaving their supervisors in the lurch. But he said many of the absences included in the data are absences that are cleared ahead of time by the employee, including leaves approved under the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He said the T also knows when employee won’t be showing up at work because they are on a workers compensation leave or are excused with no pay.
“These are examples of things that are scheduled,” Lang said, suggesting they shouldn’t be categorized as unscheduled. “There’s an implication here that people are being irresponsible. The workers have taken a beating on this issue.”
One slide showed the unscheduled absence rate among transportation operators was 11.3 percent during the second quarter of this year. But a breakdown showed that 64 percent of the absences came in the categories cited by Lang – leaves under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, workers compensation, and where the employee was excused with no pay.
Joseph Aiello, the chairman of the control board, said he agreed with Lang and urged T officials to present the data differently in the future.
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About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
MBTA officials seemed to have difficulty understanding Lang’s concerns. Janice Brochu, the T’s chief human resources officer, said the overall thrust of her presentation was that the MBTA is doing a much better job at policing various types of leaves. She noted, for example, that the percentage of employees with Family and Medical Leave Act certification had fallen from 32 percent in June 2015 to 21 percent in June 2017. She said the percentage of employees taking five or more days off under the Family and Medical Leave Act was down from 33.5 percent in fiscal 2015 to 28.36 percent in fiscal 2017, which ended June 30. She said workers were also taking less time off under the Americans with Disabilities Act and fewer workers were being approved for the leaves.
Brochu said 41 employees had been terminated so far this year for attendance violations, compared to 24 in fiscal 2016 and 32 in fiscal 2015. She said 73 employees are currently serving either three-day, five-day, or 70-day suspensions for attendance violations as part of a progressive discipline track, with the final step being termination.
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