Citing labor crunch, Baker hints at MBTA relief

Many of the staffing issues that have created safety problems and service cuts at the MBTA mirror hiring challenges that employers across both the public and private sectors face, Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday while hinting he will pursue additional funding for the T as it careens toward a budget cliff.

With the transit agency he oversees facing intense scrutiny from federal investigators and the Legislature preparing its own oversight hearing, Baker said he is “of course” concerned about the “recent challenges.” But he also sought to brush off the blame top Democrats aimed his way by linking struggles at the T to economy-wide factors rather than his management.

“There’s always opportunities to point fingers,” Baker replied when asked if he bears responsibility for the cascade of problems at the MBTA. “I would much rather worry about trying to make the things that need to get fixed, fixed. The T is not immune to all the issues associated with labor that are affecting virtually every part of our economy.”

Baker pointed to airports and airlines as a parallel to the MBTA, saying they are “having a very hard time delivering on the requirements and the services and the personnel that they’re supposed to have to get planes in and out.”

“Almost everybody who’s in the you’ve-got-to-show-up-for-work business is learning to live with a new normal, and the T’s no different than everybody else with regard to that,” Baker said.

Staffing shortages were one of the red flags the Federal Transit Administration highlighted in the early phases of its safety management inspection of the T, a nearly unprecedented probe prompted by a string of injurious and sometimes fatal incidents on its subways and trolleys.

Facing orders from the FTA to cease overworking its shorthanded dispatcher workforce, the MBTA slashed weekday frequency on the Red, Orange and Blue lines and then launched a “hiring blitz” in attempts to staff up quickly.

“There’s a lot of this going on around the economy, both in Massachusetts, around the country and frankly around the world,” Baker said. “Do I think the T needs to deal with these and fix it? Yeah, I do. Are we going to do whatever we can to help them? Of course. Remember, all the positions that currently aren’t filled at the T are funded. They’re funded positions. The T’s biggest problem at this point is getting people into those roles and responsibilities and making it happen.”

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