Metro-North ‘loafers’ spend shifts eating, shopping and skipping work

Metro-North workers were caught wasting away their shifts munching fast food, visiting Home Depot, fudging overtime bills or not bothering to even show up, in a scathing investigation by the MTA inspector general.

The probe found that one deadbeat worker became an expert at railroading the agency, treating his work time like lazy vacation days.

On one shift, the worker clocked in at the Poughkeepsie Yard, then went to Home Depot before heading to his own house for 45 minutes.

He then ate at McDonald’s, visited a relative’s auto-repair shop, and spent more than an hour chilling near the Garrison station, even though there was no track work going on there.

Finally, the wandering worker scarfed down an Arby’s meal and capped it all off by stopping “at a private residence (not his home) for 30 minutes,” the report said.

He then clocked out at a Metro-North facility at Beacon at 4 p.m., according to the report.

That lazy locomotive man wasn’t the only MTA employee caught dodging his duty. The investigators watched a group of five machinists who had racked up big overtime, and caught four of them sometimes doing no work for an entire shift. In fact, of 45 shifts observed, the workers were caught 10 times failing to do their jobs, which are to maintain track-repair equipment. The investigation began in April 2012.

Another worker was assigned to work in Bridgeport, Conn., but would clock in at the Brewster Yard in New York, near his home. That allowed him to commute on company time. Investigators believe he racked up about 100 hours in work time for travel over several months.

Others clocked in hours early for their overtime tours. One worker checked in for an overtime shift six hours too early, but was paid from the time he checked in.

MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger said that railroads are vulnerable to lapses in productivity because workers handle hundreds of miles of tracks.

“An honor system is simply not an acceptable alternative to effective management and oversight,” he said.

Sources identified four workers who have been disciplined as James Wright, Scott Newman, Joseph Derossa and Alfred Thomas. Their foremen, identified as Duane DePalma and Anthony Vitulli, also have been disciplined.

The workers earned between $ 37,000 and $ 60,000 in overtime individually last year.

The MTA plans to implement the IG’s recommendations, which include spot checks, and install GPS systems in agency vehicles.

MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg called the behavior in the report unacceptable.

Yahoo Local News – New York Post

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