A new union contract between the MBTA and nearly half its workforce offers an 18% pay hike, incentives to stay at the transit agency, and targeted hiring goals for hard-to-fill positions, officials said Wednesday.
The contract still needs to be approved by the MBTA board, which meets next on Thursday, but MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng and Boston Carmen’s Local 589 boss Jim Evers gave their stamp of approval at a press conference outside of the MBTA’s Cabot Yard.
The contract — which covers maintenance workers, bus drivers, train drivers, and other frontline employees — will provide an 18% wage increase over four years, codifies “a number of attraction and retention” measures, better pay progression for new hires, and sign-on bonuses, Gov. Maura Healey said.
“It also expands benefits, adding 10 days of paid parental leave, bereavement leave for domestic partners, and dental and vision coverage for part time workers,” she said. “These are opportunities that current T workers deserve. And they will help us bring more workers into the workforce to meet the needs of our system now and going forward.”
It was not immediately clear how much the new contract costs taxpayers and an MBTA spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
Evers said the new contract is a “game changer” for the public transit system.
“It’s designed to attract top talent, prioritize safety and ensure that our services remain accessible to all,” he said. “Not only does this contract memorialize a range of recruitment incentives, including signing bonuses, but it has targeted increases aimed at hard to fill positions such as bus drivers, train operators, along with maintenance and folks that are working overnight shifts.”
Eng said the contract demonstrates how much the state “values” MBTA workers.
“They will have more time in their day, they will have more time to be able to build their career as well and that’s another key part to retention,” he said.
A report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation released earlier this year found the MBTA must hire 2,800 workers within the next year to meet its budgeted headcount of 7,600 personnel. That is factoring in 1,000 expected departures from April to the end of fiscal year 2024.
Eng said the MBTA is on track to bring in 1,300 new employees this year if “we continued at this pace.”
“This new contract, with five months to go, we hope to change those numbers,” Eng said. “… We’re not behind on hiring. We have hired almost 800 new employees to-date. That doesn’t count the over 300 promotions that we’ve made internally.”
Healey said there has been “an exponential increase” in MBTA hires.
“We haven’t seen that in a long, long, long time, if ever,” she said. “And the T is also working on retention. Retention is very important … What’s in this contract is going to help fight some of that attrition and deal with the retention.”