Massachusetts Transit Workers Sickness Rampant

Recently you've heard of the New York city transportation workers going on strike.Now Boston Globe reports on another Blue area:

MBTA officials say rampant absenteeism is hurting bus and subway service, discouraging riders, and eating away at the agency's finances by forcing it to pay overtime.


Despite a drop in absences in the last two years, about 35 percent of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's roughly 6,000 employees were absent for 11 or more days in 2004, and 16 percent were absent 26 or more days.

The T counts employees as absent if they call in sick after using up their annual allotment of 10 sick days, if they are more than two hours late, give less than one hour's notice when calling in sick, or if they have other unexcused absences.

As we've said before,may be having a union worker take you to work isn't the best idea.When someone has a monopoly what incentive do they to provide good service?