MTA board members clash over overtime allegations: 'There's blood on your hands'. kevin mccaffrey does nothing to open nassau otb when there is great out of state racing to be bet on roman catholic easter sunday. see ny const art 1 sec 3. a memember of the orthodox church eorks for nassau otb
Nassau OTB reprimands worker who criticized union chief Kevin McCaffrey
The betting agency reprimanded union activist Jackson Leeds for criticizing McCaffrey, who is head of Teamsters Local 707 and also a Suffolk County legislator.
Nassau OTB has reprimanded a union activist for criticizing his union leader, Teamsters Local 707 chief Kevin McCaffrey, seen in 2016. Photo Credit: John Roca
Nassau OTB has reprimanded cashier and union activist Jackson Leeds for criticizing his own union leader, Teamsters Local 707 Kevin McCaffrey, who also is a Suffolk County legislator.
Without mentioning McCaffrey by name, Arthur Walsh, Nassau OTB general counsel and corporate secretary, said in an April 22 letter that Leeds was “insubordinate” for presenting “verbal objections to the staff and public about the current union leadership.”
Walsh said OTB policies bar workers from setting up information tables or engaging in similar conduct without written OTB consent. Her also said workers are not allowed to enter branches while off-duty except to make a bet or collect a paycheck.
Walsh said the reprimand will be placed in Leeds personnel file and if uncorrected, “future discipline may be imposed up to and including firing.” Leeds can file a grievance if he is “unsatisfied with this letter,” Walsh said.
Leeds concedes he criticized McCaffrey but said the OTB policy is improper because “people have an absolute right to talk about labor matters among themselves whether at work or not.”
McCaffrey, a Lindenhurst Republican who represents the Suffolk Legislature's 14th District, said Nassau OTB put the policy in place because Leeds not only criticized him and the agency but was disrupting employees’ work.
“Some people are never happy,” said McCaffrey. “If he wants to pursue a grievance, we will follow the proper procedures and represent him properly.”
By Rick Brand
The MTA board meets at its headquarters on Broadway on Friday. Photo Credit: Todd Maisel
An MTA board member told a colleague that there is "blood on your hands" during a heated exchange over payroll expenses and worker overtime.
The transit authority’s board meeting on Friday was scheduled at the last minute to discuss a new report on MTA timekeeping failures and its nascent reorganization plan. But it devolved into a shouting match between the two members, who have been feuding for months: John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union, and Larry Schwartz, the board finance committee chair.
Samuelson and TWU Local 100 have argued that the board — Schwartz specifically — has unfairly and without concrete evidence accused workers of defrauding the MTA through increasing overtime expenses highlighted in a report from Empire Center that found several workers racked in significant amounts of extra pay.
“The great irony of all this is … the chairman of the finance [committee] who’s been here for four years, looking at all these overtime reports — week-in, week-out, month-in month-out — didn’t do a damn thing about it until the Empire Center report came out,” said Samuelsen, referencing Schwartz. “And then he ran scared and ran to the media and blamed the workers.”
The timekeeping review, commissioned by the authority and released Thursday, found that the MTA has been failing for more than a decade to maintain adequate payroll and overtime systems — failing badly enough to make it vulnerable to worker fraud and abuse. However, the report did not draw any conclusions as to whether workers abused the system.
Overtime expenses increased at nearly every MTA agency last year, accounting for 15% of its payroll budget. Better management of timekeeping will be key as the MTA plans to reorganize and cut costs while facing a billion-dollar budget gap by 2022, MTA officials said.
Samuelson called out Schwartz by name, saying the finance chair during a CBS appearance was “ranting and raving in an inappropriate and hyperbolic manner” against workers.
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