Local News

New MBTA contract hikes pay 18% as T doubles down on hiring

Gov. Maura Healey said the new union contract will give T workers their largest pay increase since the 1990s.

Gov. Maura Healey and state transportation leaders gathered at the MBTA's Cabot Yard Wednesday to announce a new labor agreement aimed at improving frontline employee recruitment and retention. David L Ryan/Globe Staff

By Abby Patkin

August 2, 2023

2 minutes to read

MBTA workers are getting a pay bump — and a few other perks — as part of a new four-year labor agreement between the T and its largest union.

Covering nearly half of the MBTA’s workforce, the tentative contract with Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589 features “the largest pay increase for T workers since the 1990s,” Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday.

More on the MBTA:

The MBTA Board of Directors is set to vote on the contract Thursday.

Speaking at the T’s Cabot Yard in South Boston, Healey said the agreement provides a wage increase totaling 18% over four years and codifies attraction and retention measures like sign-on bonuses and longevity incentives.

She said other benefits include 10 added days of paid parental leave, as well as dental and vision insurance for part-time workers.

Carmen’s Local 589 President Jim Evers called the contract a “game changer,” noting that it features targeted increases aimed at certain hard-to-fill positions, such as bus drivers and overnight crews.

Healey and MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng “have put together a plan, and the major part of this plan was to put stock back into the workforce, our labor,” Evers said. “There’s a feeling of respect from these offices, and it trickles down to the frontline workers, and it’s been working tremendously.”

Despite ‘exponentially greater’ MBTA hiring, retention still an issue

The new contract comes as the MBTA struggles with longstanding staffing challenges that have necessitated service cuts and raised doubts about the transit agency’s ability to make significant improvements down the line.

Speaking on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” Tuesday, Eng said the T is hitting its hiring goals, “but attrition is offsetting those metrics.”

The T made 768 external hires in the first half of 2023, according to a presentation given during a July 13 MBTA board subcommittee meeting. However, the agency also lost 447 workers in that time frame, including 127 people who were hired but did not start.

Appearing on “Radio Boston” Wednesday, Healey acknowledged an uphill battle with attrition and retention.

“But the hiring is exponentially greater than it has ever been, which is so, so important because we need bodies,” she said.

Asked how she planned to fund the salary increases included in the new contract, Healey was somewhat vague but said it was “all expected and planned for in the [state] budget that we put forth.”

“We don’t have any other choice,” she continued. “We know that everybody is struggling right now with workforce — all industries are, and we need to be able to compete, and compete for workers.”

Speaking at Cabot Yard earlier in the day, Eng said that without the new Carmen’s Local 589 agreement, the T was on track to bring on about 1,300 new employees by the end of the year.

“This new contract, with five months to go, we hope to change those numbers,” he said.