MTA Cheating Scandal

[OlympianHiawatha]

At least 9 Conductors in Training for Metro-North RR have been fired after they were discovered cheating on a Safety/Signal Aspects Exam. It seems one of the Conductors sneaked a copy of the Exam from the Instructor's bag, took pictures of it and then e-mailed those pictures to other class members. The MTA is investigating whether this is an isolated incident or a sign of a potentially serious problem.

 

[Anderson]

This at least sounds like an isolated incident (not to mention being a classic incident of "Too easy to pass up the chance" cheating). The only way I end up seeing this as a pattern is if the instructor was somehow in on the game (like the SAC incident).

 

[William W.]

Hopefully those directly involved get blacklisted from ever being able to become conductors on any railroad ever again. Anyone who would cheat to get a job that involves being in charge of several hundred tons of high velocity steel, packed with hundreds of people (or hazardous chemicals), shouldn't have applied for the job in the first place.

From the looks of things though, they may have cast too wide of a net and fired people who had no involvement.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2014/07/02/metro-north-conductors-fired-test-scandal/11991029/

 

[Anderson]

*sighs*

And it looks like some lawyers will be making a killing off of this, since it is quite likely at least someone has a wrongful dismissal claim.