MTA Chairman Janno Lieber told state lawmakers Monday he will push the powerful labor unions at the Long Island Rail Road for work rule reforms, following a Post expose of widespread waste and inefficiency at the agency that cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The contracts allow engineers to earn quadruple time on a standard eight-hour shift and conductors earn double pay for working a train for a Mets game; while LIRR labor practices include putting as many as a half-dozen ticket collectors on a single train.
Just bringing the LIRR wages and work force efficiency in line with Metro-North would save the MTA more than $200 million annually, the investigation found.
“My predecessors had railroad agreements, many of which date to the early 20th century, because the Long Island Rail Road’s been around that long,” Lieber said. “Sometimes, you need to update. And that’s what we will do. We’ll put those issues on the table.”
Lieber added that, in the interim, he had named the president of Metro-North, Catherine Rinaldi, as the interim chief of the LIRR to “look for opportunities to compare and contrast efficiency” at the rail road.
The question to Lieber came from powerful state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), who chairs the upper chamber’s finance committee and will have an important role in negotiating the state budget that includes at least $1.6 billion for the MTA.
Good government groups and MTA watchdogs have been pressing lawmakers to demand the MTA implement additional reforms to operations and labor practices before handing over the money.
