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Baker Being Urged to Replace MBTA Board

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Based on findings recently  issued  by a panel he appointed in February to investigate blizzard-related system shutdowns, Governor Charlie Baker is now being urged to find new leadership for the beleaguered MBTA. including asking for the resignations of the entire MassDOT Board of Directors. In a press conference, Baker stated there was a need to improve the fiscal responsibility and the performance of the transit system.

One recommendation includes creation of a five-member “Fiscal and Management Control Board.” Over the next three to five years, this board would supervise the MBTA’s finances, develop goals, restructure the MBTA, and “reinvent the labor-management and contract relationships.” Of the five board members, the governor would appoint three and the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives would each select one. This board would be given the mission to “aggressively” pursue these and other objectives, ultimately choosing a new CEO for the transit system.Baker shared the recommendations of this panel with the state legislature, saying they were “interested in the findings.” He also said that MassDOT board members are aware of the findings.The report includes recommendations to crack down on fare evasions and to add more advertising and concessions in stations. Interestingly, the report also suggested the state should assume debt payments for the Big Dig, in exchange for which the state would no longer cover shortfalls in the operating budget of the transit authority.Portions of the report have been leaked to the media over the past several days. One uncomfortable finding was that the average MBTA worker was absent 57 days a year. Perhaps more disturbing, the MBTA did not utilize up $2.2 billion in possible grants and bonds between 2010 and 2014.

Spaulding Closing Salem Location

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Administrators at Spaulding Hospital have announced that it will shut down The Spaulding Hospital for Continuing Medical Care North Shore’s inpatient operations by the end of September 2015, with the hospital saying that new federal regulations will severely impact patient volume.

Approximately 320 people are scheduled to be laid off because of this move and Spaulding has indicated they would, where appropriate, be assigning some displaced staff to other positions within its parent Partners HealthCare system while others will be receiving severance packages.

The Salem location, formerly known as the Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital, has been experiencing declining inpatient numbers for years and now operates below 50% capacity. Given recent policy changes at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, inpatient volume was predicted to dip to below 32 percent.

“The dramatic further decline based on the new admitting criteria established by CMS has created an untenable situation. Sadly, it is no longer viable to continue SNS’s inpatient services,” said David Storto, president of Partners Continuing Care, and Maureen Banks, president of Spaulding Hospital for Continuing Medical Care North Shore.

“The new LTAC regulations will not impact Spaulding Hospital Cambridge to the same degree because of a different Medicare mix and a greater number of referring hospitals,” Spaulding officials said.

Spokespeople for Partners HealthCare say the CMS changes won’t affect patient services at any of their other hospitals. Both inpatient and outpatient services will still be available in Charlestown, Cambridge and on Cape Cod, as well as at skilled nursing facilities in Boston and outpatient sites in the North Shore.

Boston to Investigate Gender Wage Gap

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On Tuesday, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh jumped head first into the bickering swirling around the issue of the gender wage gap. He did so by announcing that the city is getting set  to study the wages of male and female employees at dozens of  local companies. This is the first attempt by any major U.S. city to quantify the gender wage gap by scrutinizing actual salary data.

Addressing an audience at the inaugural Boston Women’s Venture Capital Summit in the Seaport on Tuesday morning, Walsh said, “We know that the wage gap continues to be an issue all across this nation, and it’s time to stop talking about it and start taking action.”

Many of the state’s largest employers, including Putnam Investments and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, have agreed to anonymously provide wage information, broken down by gender, race, job category, and length of employment.

Evelyn Murphy, former lieutenant governor and member of Boston’s Women’s Workforce Council, said, “This is the game changer. Prior to now, this has been all so secretive. Some companies just don’t want people to know [salaries]. And you can understand why. But on the other hand it means there’s been no collaboration to get at the inequities that are really there.”

“We’re not trying to punish companies, we’re trying to have people understand where they’re at,” said Megan Costello, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Women’s Advancement.

So, how do you convince a major corporation to peel back the lid on sensitive salary information when competitors would so clearly benefit from having access to that data?

By keeping it anonymous, that’s how. Even when the aggregate salary information is made public, the companies attached to specific data will not be revealed.

Tuesday morning, Walsh also made it clear that he is determined to lead by example.

The mayor says he observed a wage gap among top City Hall staffers as noted in a draft report from his new Office of Diversity. According to an analysis of payroll data, men in Walsh’s cabinet are paid, on average, nearly $156,000, while women in the cabinet earn $123,000.

To help close the gap, Walsh gave a 12 percent raise to his chief of policy, Joyce Linehan, increasing her annual salary from $125,000 to $140,000 and Laura Oggeri, the mayor’s spokeswoman, received a 15 percent pay hike, increasing her annual salary to $116,000 from $101,000. Despite these pay increases, women in Walsh’s cabinet are still being paid, on average, almost $27,000 less than men.

Previous attempts to address the wage gap have largely been limited to legislative proposals, including the federal Paycheck Fairness Act, which would increase pay transparency and require businesses to justify pay grade differences. Bills filed in Massachusetts earlier this year would prohibit employers from seeking job candidates’ salary histories and require that minimum pay be disclosed for advertised positions.

Analyzing the gender wage gap is a complex undertaking, said Kathy Horgan, chief operating officer for global human resources at State Street Corp., one of the companies taking part in the survey. She noted that one of the sources of salary disparities at the Boston financial services company appears to be a lack of women in senior positions.

“That’s where we don’t have the kind of representation of women that we want to see, and we do believe that’s a driver of our wage gap,” she said.

The city pledges to make the salary information public early this summer.

 

Coffee is… GOOD FOR YOU??

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Over 50% of the American adult population drink coffee daily. The next time you feel bad about making your fourth trip to the break room in two hours, allow yourself to bypass the guilt of relying so heavily on the bean and remind yourself that your caffeine habit (it’s totally not an addiction) could actually be doing some good for your health. Apparently, there are health advantages to drinking the brew daily; it can even help lower the risk of developing liver cancer.

Coffee is, first and foremost, rich with antioxidants. Antioxidants, in case you may have forgotten their actual function, help prevent cell damage by blocking the activity of chemicals known as free radicals. Free radicals are produced naturally by your body as a byproduct of respiration, and can cause cell damage as well as lead to cancer. Statistics show that coffee drinking can lower that risk by up to 14%.

A study by a research team at Imperial College London analyzed 34 existing global studies on the effects of diet, nutrition, exercise and weight in regards to the risk of cancer. In total, the studies encompassed about 8.2 million adults and 24,500 cases of liver cancer.

While the exact reason as to why coffee may lower the risk of the disease is still unknown, researches speculate that it may have something to do with certain compounds present in the beverage that can help fight toxins. The report noted that studies have shown coffee to reduce the inflammation of cells, and that the effects were most pronounced on the liver.

So in case you were debating taking that extra mid-afternoon brew, go ahead! Drink up in the name of health!

Berkshire County Rep. Proposes Change to Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers

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Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier of Berkshire County, Massachusetts has presented a bill that, if passed, would gradually increase the minimum wage for tipped workers in the state until they are paid the same as other minimum wage workers. This is an addition to the current law, which will increase minimum wage for tipped workers to $3.75 per hour from the current $2.63 by 2017. Standard minimum wage for those employees who do not receive tips was raised to $9 in January.

Massachusetts currently defines tipped employees as those who earn more than $20 per month in tips and who, with minimum wage plus tips, make at least $9 per hour. While employers are legally required to make up the difference for tipped workers who do not reach the $9 per hour threshold, restaurant worker advocates say that many avoid actually doing so. This is especially true for restaurants that employ large numbers of undocumented workers.

The bill is supported through the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) of Boston advocacy group’s “One Fair Wage” campaign, which seeks to end wage theft by employers. According to research by the Economic Policy Institute, this type of theft results in employee loss of more than $50 billion per year.

Beyond the wage theft issue, many labor and gender relations experts believe that a landscape in which employees must work for tips leads to a culture of sexual harassment by customers. According to a report by the ROC, 78 percent of women and 55 percent of men who work in restaurants report experiencing this type of harassment. Their research also shows that restaurant servers, who are traditionally tipped employees, are three times more likely than other types of workers to live in poverty.

As expected, restaurant owners argue that moving away from the current system would make it difficult for them to create jobs because of the resulting economic loss. Stephen Clark, director of government affairs for the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, argues that in Massachusetts, most servers make at least $13 per hour, with some topping out at as much as $30 per hour.

California and Nevada have both enacted similar legislation.

Gains Reported in State’s Human Services Sector

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A new research study released by the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts in conjunction with UMass Dartmouth has revealed that human services sector employment in the Bay State increased nearly 48 percent during the years spanning 2003-2011, a fact many in the industry will surely find to be a source of encouragement. In addition, the report indicated that the 145,000 members of that sector generated disposable income in an amount ultimately responsible for a $3.4 billion statewide economic impact in 2011 alone.

The study had been commissioned by The Providers’ Council, a leading association for community-based groups across the Commonwealth. Creation of the report was overseen by David Jordan, CEO of Seven Hills Foundation, together with fellow Providers’ Council committee members who had been charged with the task. Formally released at the Statehouse, the report also declared that the 145,000 jobs comprising the human services sector equated to 5 percent of the total jobs within the state, and that this sector had increased in size more rapidly than anticipated.

Other key findings in the report include the fact that, despite sector growth, state budgetary allocations for spending on human services shrunk from 11.8 percent in FY 2003 to just 9.8 in FY 2014, something fiscal watchdogs are likely to applaud. Also of note was the discovery that out of all industries represented within Massachusetts, human services included the highest rate of employees with a defined disability, at 6.5 percent.

Will the MBTA Cause the Demise of 2024 Boston Olympics?

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At a Suffolk University panel convened in Boston on March 17th, there was a discussion regarding two closely related subjects: improved infrastructure and the possibility of hosting the world’s Olympic Summer games in 2024.

This past December, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said that the Olympics “allows us the opportunity to really talk to our partners in the state and federal government about upgrading the infrastructure that we have.” Additionally, a study by the state earlier in the year found that an Olympic bid would indeed be feasible.

The only problem? After a tough winter– as you may have heard, Boston had record snowfall at 107.6 inches– is estimated that the MBTA system has a backlog of $6.7 billion in needed work. With this amount of money needed, there aren’t many options.

One option would be to raise revenues or taxes. This could help not only solve existing problems, but tackle ones related to having a robust infrastructure for the upcoming Olympics. Current No Boston Olympics organizer and former MassDOT officer Chris Dempsey said that the pro-Olympics movement has objected to this.

Another option would be to simply address one issue or the other, leaving the other for future resolution. For better or worse, the Olympics would probably go by the wayside if it came down to this. While the Olympics could bring in extra revenue, it also can be a strain on the city, one that is not absolutely necessary.

The train stations that are already starting to undergo improvements include the Red and Orange line trains, along with the Government Center station. Incidentally, these renovations would also be needed if the Olympics were to take place. The expansion of South Station and upgrades on the JFK/UMass station would also be nearly necessary to host the Summer Olympics.

Massachusetts Lighting Company Doubles LED Sales

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Everyone knows that Massachusetts is a hotbed for companies in fields like biotech, research and development, medical device manufacturing, and… lighting…. uh, wait… whut?

That’s right, there is a rapidly expanding market for cost-effective, energy-efficient, commercial lighting products, and companies like Worcester’s Access Fixtures are positioning themselves accordingly. In fact, as evidence of what can only be described as explosive growth, Access Fixtures recently announced they have already experienced more than a two-fold increase in their year-over-year sales of LED-based lighting.

While the vast majority of Access Fixtures LED product sales are new luminaires, CEO Steven Rothschild says the company has also seen a noticeable increase in sales of LED retrofit kits for commercial wall packs and bollards, indicating an increase in the number of property managers who are updating their existing luminaires from other sources to LED. “As prices fall and efficacy increases, property managers realize the value achieved by a lower energy cost and reduced or eliminated maintenance,” said Rothschild. He continued, “The high volume we’ve been experiencing also allows us to reduce our overall cost of materials, which is one of the reasons we can sell an LED-equipped bollard for $239.99 and LED wallpacks from $99.00.”

Access Fixtures’ extensive lineup of interior and exterior lighting fixtures includes products for sports, commercial, industrial, residential and hospitality applications. Luminaire types include wall packs, area lights, bollards, garage lighters, vandal resistant, exit and emergency, high bay, low bay, linear fluorescent, track lighting and grow light fixtures.

With companies like Access Fixtures leading the way, Massachusetts is rapidly becoming known for something other than Cape Cod, cranberries, and biotech. Our lighting industry is also starting to cast a long shadow.

 

GE Prepares for Marlborough Site Summer Launch

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General Electric’s decision to move its Healthcare Life Science division from New Jersey to Marlborough was initially met with tempered enthusiasm by those gauging its economic impact on the region. However, recent projections predict that the center will employ over 500 full time employees no later than 2017.

Luckily for the already stressed recruiters at GE, the Life Sciences center will not begin operations at full-scale levels; the current timetable calls for a partial launch early this summer, requiring an operational staff of approximately 215 employees. Filling even a limited number of these extremely technical positions would be a challenge for any company. Luckily, General Electric chose the Marlborough site specifically for the hiring advantages it provides.

According to releases from Erica Bell, senior global resource leader at GE, highway accessibility made Marlborough an appealing location compared to several other potential locations, with both Boston and Worcester seen as academic pools from which the facility can draw. Another benefit that Bell mentioned was the reasonable commuting times it afforded to Western Massachusetts. These factors ensure that a vast majority of the positions available now and in the future will be filled by candidates from within Massachusetts.

The location is also in the midst of what is fast becoming a regional hub for the life sciences. Life sciences technology is the fastest growing sector of the Massachusetts’ economy and, by relocating to Marlborough, GE was able to position themselves closer to customers and partners within the industry. They are also extremely close to the hospitals and universities that serve as training and testing centers for staff and equipment.

Study Says a Carefully Planned Boston Olympics Could Bring in Billions

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As Boston prepares its bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, supporters and detractors have come out of the woodwork. However, according to a study done by The Boston Foundation and the UMass Donahue Institute, the Olympics could bring up to $4 billion to the state’s economy.

According to the study, the bulk of the revenues generated would come from the creation of 4,100 construction jobs during each of the six years needed to ready the city. In addition, the city could see increased revenue during the Olympic Games themselves with tourists adding an estimated $300 million. In addition, the study estimates that another 4,300 temporary jobs will be created just for the span of the Olympics.While the report outlines the economic benefits of having the Olympics in Boston, it also cautions against overspending with the warning that it would offset the economic benefits the Games would bring. Historically, other cities have exceeded their budgets for preparing for the Olympic Games by an average of 252 percent. The report points out that the International Olympic Committee has always exposed the host city to all financial obligations that come with hosting the games.

While the report outlines the economic benefits of having the Olympic Games in Boston, it also raises substantial questions about the fiscal viability of having an Olympic-sized budget for the games.

In addition to concerns with overspending, the report also points out shortfalls in public transportation and infrastructure that would need to be addressed. The report drew no conclusions as to the likelihood that Boston would receive a disproportionate amount of public money to improve its infrastructure. The study was also unable to determine how extensive these improvements would actually be.