Derailing reform: How all-powerful union fights efforts to fix T
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Erin Smith, Matt Stout
The Boston Carmen’s Union — the powerful labor group for MBTA bus drivers and subway operators fighting Gov. Charlie Baker’s plan to fix the troubled transit agency — wields huge clout to derail reforms through political donations and influence, aggressive lobbying and unchecked arbitration, a Herald review found.
The 6,000-member-strong Carmen’s Union Local 589’s influence and reform-blocking tactics include:
• Its political action committee, which poured thousands into the campaign coffers for sitting members of the Transportation Committee and has doled out more than $58,000 in campaign donations to more than 100 politicians and committees since 2014 alone. That’s more than twice the political cash handed out by the powerful Boston Teachers Union during that time.
• The union spent nearly $360,000 lobbying Beacon Hill in the past five years and doubled its lobbying budget, bringing on the firm Travaglini, Eisenberg & Kiley for two years as lawmakers debated 2009 transportation reform.....
They’re clearly a powerful union in the transportation area. There’s no question about it,” Baddour said. “They are a group that the Legislature and the governor will have to deal with. They’re a strong union and it’s always a fight.”
Baker said he intends to work with the Carmen’s Union.
“They have a job to do, as does every union, which is to represent their members, and I get that and I understand that,” the governor said. “And our job is to represent the riding public, the taxpayers, the organization and the folks in organized labor. My hope and my goal is to have a collaborative relationship with them on those issues.”
But the union has already staked out its ground, brushing off criticism of the high absenteeism rate for T employees and fighting a proposal to suspend the MBTA from following the so-called Pacheco Law and allow outside contracts for the backlog of T repairs.
Through a spokesman, Carmen’s Union President James O’Brien declined to be interviewed by the Herald yesterday. But a union bulletin titled “Time to Fight” blasted out yesterday urged its members to phone lawmakers.
“Please know, the fight is beginning and we are NOT going to sit idly by and allow this to take place,” the bulletin said.
In the missive, the union also touted a public relations campaign led by outside media consultant Steve Crawford, as well as meetings union lobbyist Mike Morris has already had with more than 40 lawmakers.
Baddour, who took past donations from the union, explained how the union operates.