Almost 20 employees of the MBTA were suspended for not paying proper attention to the job over a nearly-four year period, according to the Boston Herald.
The Herald cites data it obtained from the MBTA, in response to a request it filed for “MBTA employees found sleeping during work hours,” from 2019 to 2022.
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In that data, the T said there were 17 employee suspensions during that time for workers deemed to not be giving proper attention to the job. A spokesperson told the news agency that the data does not necessarily mean the employee was asleep, because there is not a category that is specifically for sleeping.
The suspensions ranged from three to 70 days, the Herald reports, and two of the suspensions were listed as "final." An additional employee, who was a bus driver, was not suspended and instead issued an infraction notice during that time period.
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Twelve of the suspensions involved bus drivers, two involved bus inspectors, along with one each for a streetcar operator, subway operator and electrical worker, the Herald reported.
The MBTA spokesperson did not disclose to the Herald what types of conduct the suspensions could have been prompted by, other than the generic "failure to pay proper attention" violation. The MBTA would also not confirm to the news outlet whether some of the workers were sleeping or if the conduct happened while any of them were working overtime hours.
